


Being Different Year 3- Lies and Lycanthropy

by LunaLupin1999



Series: Anne Potter [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Autism, Developing Relationship, Divination, F/M, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Panic Attacks, Prophetic Dreams, Social Anxiety, severe anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24214531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaLupin1999/pseuds/LunaLupin1999
Summary: Anne has started having strange dreams, she worries Hogwarts may be in danger. Irwin has started acting strangely. Will Anne ever have a normal year at school?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin/Harry Potter
Series: Anne Potter [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726564
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Dreaming

Anne not for the first time in her life woke up from a nightmare, but this one hadn’t been about Quirrell, it had been different.

Anne still had nightmares about Quirrell every now and again, but they didn’t scare her as much they used to because Remus had explained that they were only dreams, Quirrell was dead and he couldn’t hurt them anymore.

When she had nightmares about Quirrell they were clear, whereas this had been somewhat broken and distorted. All she could remember was a street sign for a place called Lampeter, a full moon, and a wolf. 

Anne checked her alarm clock on the bedside table, it was four o’clock in the morning. She couldn’t sleep so she decided to do some reading she read for a few hours and then practiced her wandless magic before breakfast.

She was getting quite good; she could do the most basic spells without having to try too hard. Wandless magic had saved her life a little over a year ago so she didn’t know when it might come in handy again.

“Anne, breakfast!” called Sirius from the doorway.

Anne stopped levitating objects around the room and put everything away again before going down to breakfast.

There was Anne’s usual bowl of fruit waiting for her at the table. She sat down opposite her Uncle Remus, he was looking very tired and had shadows under his eyes, he always looked like that on the lead up to the full moon.

“Morning Remus.”

“Hi sweetheart, you sleep alright?”

“Um not really….”

“Quirrell?” asked Sirius bringing over a rack of toast as Harry came into the room.

“No, it was different, almost broken, it was almost trying to tell me something!”

“I’m sure it was nothing kiddo,” said Sirius tucking into a piece of toast.

Remus looked uncertain though. “Do you remember anything about the dream?”

“There was a place name, a full moon, and a wolf,” she answered.

Remus shifted guiltily in his seat; it was going to be the full moon that night.

“There have been a lot of attacks recently, you’re probably just worried about that, the prophet full of them,” said Sirius, “bloody Greyback!” he muttered as he cleared away the breakfast things.

“Sirius can we go flying today?” asked Harry excitedly.

“Sure!” said Sirius eagerly, “you two go and get dressed then.”

Anne went upstairs and got dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a sky-blue top. Her hair ribbons turned blue today.

She was just heading downstairs to fetch a book to read when she heard an argument. She sat down on the edge of the stairs to listen.

“She’s having bloody nightmares again!” sobbed Remus.

“She’s always having nightmares, she’s a sensitive kid!” said Sirius.

“Yeah but usually about Quirrell, I can handle that, but now she’s started having them about me!”

“It’s not about you Moony!” said Sirius placing an arm around his best friends’ shoulders.

“There was a wolf and a full moon, she had a nightmare about me!! She’s terrified of me because I’m a bloody monster!”

“No mate she’s not, it’s just that the prophet keeps writing about Greyback and his attacks.”

“She’s terrified of me!”

“Remus look at me!” Sirius said looking at his friend, “Anne loves you! You would never hurt her, you are safe in that cellar and you are not going to hurt anyone!”

“But…”

“No buts Remus!” said Sirius firmly, “now sort yourself out before the kids see you.”

But it was too late, Sirius started on his way upstairs to grab something when he found Anne sobbing quietly on the stairs. She ran up to her room before he had a chance to try and talk to her.

“Shit!” he muttered under his breath.

“Moony, we’ve got a problem here!”

“What?” asked Remus getting up from the sofa.

“Anne heard everything!” 

“Oh Merlin!” said Remus starting his way upstairs to Anne’s room.

He knocked on the door but there was no answer. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. Anne never locked her door!

“Anne,” Remus called gently, “Anne sweetheart please open the door.”

There was no answer.

“Anne, I need to talk to you!”

There was still no answer but there was the soft click of a door unlocking.

Remus opened the door and found Anne curled up under her duvet sobbing.

“Anne sweetheart,” said Remus as he sat down on the end of the bed, “I’m sorry I said that, it’s just you having a nightmare about a werewolf…”

“It wasn’t really a nightmare,” Anne struggled to explain. “I think it was trying to tell me something, there was a signpost.”

“Have you had dreams like this before?” 

“No,” said Anne, “never like this, it was all broken and distorted.”

“I’m not scared of you Uncle Remus,” she said climbing out from under the duvet, “I never could be I love you!”

“I know that,” said Remus gently pulling Anne in closer. “I just sometimes still think of myself as a monster, I don’t feel like I deserve to be loved.”

“Don’t be silly Remus! I know you’d never hurt me, and it's not your fault!”

“Anne darling, do you remember the place name from your dream at all?” asked Remus carefully.

“I think it was somewhere called Lampeter.”

Remus and Anne spent the morning checking maps for the place from Anne’s dream, they eventually found it on a map. It was small university town in rural Wales in a county called Ceredigion.

Finding the place on the map made Anne feel slightly better. 

Anne and Remus spent the afternoon in the garden because it was such a nice day, evening came, and as usual Harry and Anne ran upstairs to their rooms before sunset, and Sirius guarded the door down to the cellar just in case anything went wrong.

Anne had the same dream the next night, but she managed to get back to sleep.

Remus looked exhausted as he drank his cup of tea whilst Sirius cooked the breakfast.

“Hi Remus,” called Anne giving her godfather a hug before sitting down opposite him.

“Morning darling,” he replied tiredly.

At that moment the Daily Prophet was brought in through the window by an owl. After paying the owl Remus opened the paper.

After a few moments, Remus looked at Anne nervously. He passed the paper to Anne.

On the front page, it said in clear letters-

FENRIR GREYBACK ATTACKS FAMILY IN CEREDIGION WALES

Fenrir Greyback last night attacked a wizarding family the Davies’ in the rural town of Lampeter in Ceredigion Wales. Mr. Morgan Davies and Mrs. Mary Davies tried to protect their six-year-old son David but Greyback, unfortunately, managed to bite their son. The Davies family is currently in St Mungos, having their son looked at.

Anne stared at the front page for a moment trying to take this in until she was disturbed by Sirius placing a bowl of grapes and raspberries in front of her.

“What’s up with you lot?” asked Harry as he came into the kitchen and started loading up his plate. 

“That weird dream Anne had the other night” Remus stammered, confused, “it’s just come true,” he explained passing Sirius the paper.

“Merlin!” gasped Sirius staring at the paper.

Anne stared down at her feet and pulled at the ends of her plaits.

“I need to do some research into prophetic dreams!” exclaimed Remus after he had eaten his fill, “you want to help Anne?”

Anne nodded enthusiastically.

‘Not today you don’t!” said Sirius firmly, “bed!” Sirius ordered pointing upstairs.

Remus groaned tiredly as he got up from his chair. Remus struggled his way upstairs his joints aching like mad.

“Sirius, can I go ask the Lovegood’s if they know anything about dreams?”

“Yes, but just don’t tell anyone else,” said Sirius as he put away the breakfast things.

Anne pulled on a purple floral print summer dress and did her hair, the ribbons turned lilac today.

“Be back in time for dinner!” called Sirius as she ran out the door.

Anne started down the road and half an hour later arrived at the Lovegood’s house. The washing line was full of pages of paper their ink drying in the summer sunshine. The door was wide open but there was no one in sight!

“Mr. Lovegood!” called Anne from the doorway, “Mr. Lovegood?”

“Anne is that you child?” asked Mr. Lovegood his head popping around the door from the printing room. “Come in, come in!” 

“I’m sorry to disturb you, I’ll come back later if you’re busy,” said Anne turning to head home.

“Oh, don’t worry that’s alright, I just finished this batch!” said Mr. Lovegood coming out of the printing room with a stack of paper before going outside to hang the paper to dry.

“Luna has gone out for the day with Ginny Weasley, Luna is helping Ginny with their potions homework,” said Mr. Lovegood coming in from the garden. 

“That’s alright Sir, it’s you I need to talk to.”

Mr. Lovegood was busy preparing a pot of tea in the kitchen.

“And what can I help you with today Anne?” he asked as he poured her a cup of tea.

“What do you know about prophetic dreams Mr. Lovegood?”

“What makes you ask?”

Anne explained about the dream and then Greyback’s attack.

“Hmmm,” he said curiously, “and the images you say were blurred?”

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if you might come asking questions after the events of last year,” muttered Mr Lovegood taking a sip of his tea.

“You know that being good at divination is a very rare ability?” he asked.

Anne nodded.

“Well you have always had a good eye, been good at reading the tea leaves and seeing in the crystal ball,” he began.

Anne nodded again, Luna and Anne had often helped Mr. Lovegood with reading the tea leaves and other things for the Quibbler.

“It is rumored, that if someone encounters a near-death experience it will increase their talent at divination, it is extremely rare, as not many people have the seeing eye and even less have a near-death experience.”

Anne nodded again, “why do you think this has started now?” she asked.

“Because of you being petrified last year, I think you should start a dream diary,” said Mr. Lovegood finishing his cup of tea. “It is likely you will have more dreams like this, it could prove to be a very useful talent.” 

“Thank you for your help, Sir,” stammered Anne.

“Now I’m sorry dear,” said Mr. Lovegood clearing the table, “but I have to get on with the printing for the next issue!”

“That’s alright Mr. Lovegood, thank you again!” said Anne as she left the house.

When she got home, Anne explained everything to Sirius whilst she ate a chicken and spinach sandwich.

“So, you are one of the lucky chosen ones,” chortled Sirius “I was never great shakes at Divination myself, but you never know it could be pretty handy!”

After lunch, Anne managed to find a notebook in which to keep track of her dreams. She then finished off writing her potions essay before turning on her record player.

She lay back on her bed and let the music wash over her occasionally getting up to change the record.

“Don Maclean, American Pie,” muttered Remus from the doorway after a while.

Anne opened her eyes and looked over at him. He was looking much better now that he had had a good sleep.

“Your Mum used to like this song a lot, your Dad was more of a fan of the Beatles,” he said sitting down on the bed.

“Have you ever listened to the Seekers?” asked Remus

“No, I’ve been trying to work my way through the records but it's taking me a while, I didn’t want to disturb anyone with the music when I was at school” 

“Ah I see!” said Remus going through one of her boxes of records, “ah here we are!” he said pulling out several records from the box.

“Your mum and I used to listen to these together a lot, they were an Australian group that were popular in the ’60s, I think you might like them.”

He put the record on and a song called I’ll Never Find Another You began to play. The music was fairly gentle, there was no electric guitars or drums like in the music that Sirius enjoyed such as Queen. 

The tune was really catchy she quite liked it, after that a song came on that was slightly melancholic and was called The Carnival is Over. She shut her eyes and listened to the beautiful voice of the main singer and the harmonizing of the men from the group.

After listening to a couple more sings including a particularly catchy song called Georgy Girl Remus paused the record.

“So you like them do you?” asked Remus beaming.

Anne nodded enthusiastically “they were amazing, that woman’s voice is beautiful!” 

Remus nodded, “I thought you might,” he chuckled.

“Sirius told me about what Mr. Lovegood said, have you found a book to write down your dreams in?”

Anne nodded.

“Come on then, dinners ready,” he said getting off the bed.

They all tucked into Spaghetti Bolognese and Harry told them about what had happened at the Weasley’s that day.

“You mean,” cackled Sirius, “Mrs. Weasley opened the door to change the bed and got covered in dung bombs!”

“Yeah, they were meant for Percy. Fred and George were trying to prank his room, she was fuming!” laughed Harry.

Anne went upstairs to take a bath and listened to a few more records with Remus before going to bed.

“You got your notebook to write them down in the morning?”

“Yes,” she said pointing towards the notebook and pen on the bedside table.

“Goodnight sweetheart!” said Remus kissing her on the forehead and leaving.

Anne had another dream that night it was broken and distorted images again; a rock in the middle of the English Chanel, Dementors, and what she thought might be a rat.


	2. The Prisoner and the Pythons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter escapes from Azkaban

When Anne woke up the next morning, she jotted the dream in her book, she didn’t really think about it much though, she supposed she would just have to get used to strange dreams.

She was practising some of her spells from her charms book nonverbally and wandlessly when Remus came to tell her it was time for breakfast.

Remus caught a quill which was charging around the room.

“You’re getting pretty good at that!” said Remus handing her back the quill, “come on breakfast!”

Anne was feeling extremely hungry that morning, so she helped herself to some sausages and boiled eggs.

“What’s up with you?” asked Harry curiously as he watched his sister cut the top off her egg. “You usually only pick at some fruit at breakfast.”

Anne shrugged as she ate her boiled egg.

“Leave her Harry, she’s eating!” said Sirius clearly impressed.

“What are you going to do today Anne?” asked Remus.

“I don’t know, I was thinking about maybe listening to more records if you want to join me.”

“I’d love to!”

At this moment the paper was delivered and Sirius paid the owl. 

Remus unfolded the newspaper and a familiar face stared up at the family sitting around the breakfast table.

There was a man looking up from the front page with mousy hair and a rat-like face.

There was also a headline reading-

PETTIGREW ESCAPES

“Shit,” muttered Sirius

Anne dropped her spoon on the table. “No, no no,” she muttered before rushing up to her room.

Anne locked her door and flopped onto her bed, hyperventilating into the pillows.

How could this happen? She was supposed to be safe!

After a few minutes, there was a light knocking at her door.

“Anne, Anne sweetheart please open the door,” called a muffled voice.

“Just leave her Remus,” said another muffled voice.

“Anne sis please open the door!”

“Go away!” screamed Anne.

They left her alone after that.

She didn’t understand what was going on! How could Pettigrew escape? No one had ever escaped Azkaban before.

About half an hour later there was light knocking on her door again.

“Anne sweetheart please open the door; we need to talk!”

There was a soft click as Anne wandlessly unlocked her door from her bed.

“Thank you,” said Remus calmly opening the door.

Anne heard three sets of footsteps come into the room. She sat up and looked at a very bleary version of her uncles and Harry.

“Come here poppet,” he said sitting down on the double bed giving Anne a hug.

The other two also sat down on the bed.

“Look, Anne, I understand you’re upset and confused,” began Sirius, “but we need to talk through this.”

Anne nodded.

“Firstly even if Peter isn’t in Azkaban, you two are still safe, we are going to protect you,” said Sirius who had his arm around Harry.

“What about when we go back to school?” asked Harry.

“I’ve been thinking about that for a while actually,” Sirius muttered. “You two clearly are not as safe as we would like you to be at school. Now don’t argue with me Harry!” he said as Harry looked like he was about to interrupt. “You have faced Voldemort three times now and I don’t want there to be a fourth under my bloody watch! Albus had asked me to teach defence next year I know now I have to accept; I need to protect you two!”

Harry closed his mouth knowing full well when to admit defeat.

Anne was by this sobbing quietly into Remus and he was stroking her hair gently.

“Why were you friends with Peter?” asked Harry.

Sirius looked at him for a moment as if he was uncertain what to say.

“You two have your friends right?” said Sirius.

Anne and Harry nodded.

“Well you have friends and then best friends” continued Remus, “well Harry your best friends are Anne, Ron Hermione and possibly Irwin.”

They both nodded again.

“When I started school id never had friends before,” Remus stopped for a moment, this was a difficult subject, he had tears running lightly down his face. “When I came to Hogwarts my first friend was your father James, I soon became friends with Sirius and Peter the other two boys in our year”

“The four of us did everything together we were inseparable, it used to drive your Mum mad, I and Lily were always bickering about something!” chuckled Sirius reminiscently. 

“Just imagine though that you are at war and the only people you can trust are your closest friends,” Remus tried to explain.

“James and Lily knew that they didn’t have long left, they needed to be protected, Albus recommended that I be the secret keeper, but I suggested that they laid a false trail with Peter” Sirius stopped for a moment.

“Not one day after we changed secret keepers, Lily and James were lying dead on the floor!” he finished through gritted teeth with more than a hint of hatred in his eyes.

“That’s why Sirius is so desperate to protect you,” said Remus still trying to comfort who was still sobbing, “because he feels guilty about your parent's deaths.”

“It is my fault; I never should have trusted that dirty bloody rat!” screamed Sirius leaping off the bed

“Calm down Sirius,” said Remus calmly, “its too late for that now.”

“If I get my bloody hands on him!!”

“Our priority Sirius is protecting the children,” Remus said calmly but firmly getting up to stop his friend from doing anything rash.

Sirius nodded uncertainly before sitting back down.

“Sirius,” asked Anne. “Can we get the photos out?”

Sirius looked at her confused.

“I want to look at mum and dad.”

“And Peter,” added Harry.

“It might help them understand Padfoot,” said Remus leaving the room to go and find the albums.

“Here you are,” said Remus returning a few minutes later with a stack of photo albums.

It wasn’t hard to find pictures of the four friends from their schooldays. 

Sirius had tried destroying all the pictures of Peter when he got out of Azkaban, but Remus had talked him out of it by pointing out that most of the pictures with Peter in also contained James.

“Here’s one!” Remus said pointing at a picture of four boys with smiling faces.

“That was taken just after we met, within our first week at school,” said Sirius

There were Sirius and James both with unruly hair pulling faces at the camera, Remus with his neat brown hair looking confused at actually having friends and Peter grinning madly.  
They were all wearing their school robes with Gryffindor ties and had their arms around each other.

They spent several hours going through the albums on Anne’s bed, later on in album there was often a fifth member of the group. Lily.

She had fewer freckles than Anne and her hair was shorter, Anne’s hair was now waist-length whereas Lily had grown hers to just below her shoulders. But they had the same shade of dark red hair and the same face.

They paused on a photo of Lily and James’ wedding. Sirius was standing next to James laughing, Lily had her arm around Remus, Peter was standing in the background. Maybe he had joined Voldemort even then wondered Anne.

Not long after that, they reached the baby photos of Harry and Anne, being held by their parents and their godparents.

There was a photo of Peter playing with infant Harry and Anne

There was also a photo of James chasing a giggling baby Harry around the house whilst Harry zoomed around on his first-ever broomstick.

There was another photo of a fourteen-month-old Anne fast asleep in Lily’s arms clinging onto her ragdoll Rose.

“That’s the last photo I ever took of your mum,” muttered Sirius pointing at the date, 28th October 1981, Lily would have died three nights later.

“Thanks,” said Harry, they hadn’t gone through the photos like this for a long time.

“It's alright.”

“You feeling any better?” asked Remus to Anne who had pulled her knees up to her chest.

“A bit” she muttered.

“Well I think we should have some lunch; breakfast was sort of interrupted,” said Sirius getting up from the bed to go prepare some sandwiches, 

“Hey, Prongslet, you want to go flying after lunch? I don’t know about you, but I need to let off some ruddy steam after this morning!”

“Yeah sure!” said Harry bouncing off the bed to help his godfather make the lunches.

“Remus,” started Anne.

“hmm?”

“I had another dream last night; it was about Peter.”

“What?” asked Remus abruptly.

She passed Remus her notebook.

“Oh My God!” whispered Remus.

“It’s ok Anne, he’s not going to hurt you!” said Remus as Anne looked like she was on the verge of tears again, “he’ll have to get through me and Sirius first!” he said firmly.

Sirius reappeared ten minutes later with two plates of sandwiches and bowl of strawberries.

“Well done Sirius!” exclaimed Remus, Sirius had managed to remember that Anne’s favourite sandwiches were chicken spinach and cheese toasted sandwiches.

“Tell you what Anne, why don’t we explore your record collection this afternoon?” offered Remus as Anne ate her sandwich.

“Ok.”

Remus went over to the records and began to sort through them. Remus came back over a while later with a large stack of records.

“These are some of James and Lily’s favourite groups.”

Anne noticed that a lot of the records in the pile were by the Beatles.

‘Your Dad and Sirius used to love them; they would listen to them all the time! Should we start off with the Beatles then? You might not like all their stuff, but you might like some of it.”

Anne nodded as she finished her sandwich.

Remus pulled an old album called Abbey Road.

Anne closed her eyes and let the music wash over her listening to an old song called Here Comes the Sun, she particularly enjoyed the part with the flute!

Remus spent the afternoon teaching Anne about the Beatles as they listened to their way through the stack of James’ records. Anne learned about Penny Lane and Elanor Rigby some of their songs such as Yellow Submarine were a bit weird for Anne’s taste but she gave it a go all the same.

Sometimes she would talk to Remus about her parents and his memories of them. At other times they would simply close their eyes and let the music wash over them.

“Dinner!!” Sirius called up the stairs.

“Merlin is that the time!” exclaimed Remus, “we’ve been listening to them for five hours, it's six o’clock!”

“What?” asked Anne confused who had been relistening to Here Comes the Sun with her eyes shut.

“Dinner,” laughed Remus.

“Oh right!” said Anne getting off the bed and turning off the record player.

Anne ran downstairs where Sirius had made pizza with chicken and peppers on top of Anne’s. 

“So do you like the Beatles then Anne?” asked Sirius with interest.

“Bits of them.”

Sirius looked unimpressed but then his face lit up. “Moony do you think these two are old enough for the Pythons?”

‘Oh Merlin, this won’t end well!”

But it was too late. “Who are the Pythons?” asked Harry.

“They are brilliant geniuses is what they are!” said Sirius getting up from the table.

Sirius soon returned with an album entitled Monty Python’s Previous Record. 

“We used to stay up till all hours of the morning listening to them, one-time McGonagall came in at half-past two in the morning to find out what all the commotion was!”

“Only to get so interested in the record that she decided to stay!” laughed Remus.

Sirius put the record on, and they all sat listening for an hour the room was full of hysterical laughter.

“What the hell was that?” laughed Harry hysterically once the record finished.

“I don’t even know!” replied Anne who was also in hysterics.

“Right you two,” said Remus once he had finally stopped laughing, “bed!”

Harry and Anne started to get off the floor where they were laughing hysterically. 

“If you want Anne, seeing as we did the Beatles and the Pythons today, tomorrow I show you some of your mum’s favourites.”

“Oh god please not ABBA!” groaned Sirius.

Remus nodded.

“Remus you need to teach her muffliato, because I can not put up with them!”

“Deal!” laughed Remus.


	3. Harrys holiday homework and Roy Orbisons sunglasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne helps Harry with his homework and Remus educates Anne in Lily's favorite music
> 
> The music mentioned in this chapter are some of my favourite songs, I have a bit of a vintage taste in music!!

“Sirius, can I have Luna over tonight?” asked Anne over breakfast tonight.

“Why?” asked Sirius as he brought over a rack of toast.

“I wanted to watch the Anne of Green Gables videos with her”

“Have you done all your homework?” asked Remus from over the newspaper.

“Of course,” replied Anne.

The Summer holidays had started a fortnight ago and she had finished her homework the night before.

“Then yes dear you may.”

“Can I have Ron over tonight then?” asked Harry eagerly.

“Have you done your homework?” asked Remus.

No answer.

“Have you even started it?” 

Harry grinned guiltily. He had been too busy flying with Sirius and the Weasleys to get his homework out.

“Once you’ve done your holiday work you can have as many friends as you like to spend the night but do your homework first.”

“Now come on Moony! They’ve only been home for two weeks!” protested Sirius backing up Harry as usual.

Remus glared at Sirius from behind the paper. Sirius knew that look he had seen it before, he had known Remus for twenty years and Sirius would never win an argument when he was in that mood.

“Ok Moony you win! Harry do your homework and then you can have friends over for the night.”

“Anne did you want to have another look through your records today?” asked Remus.

“Um maybe another time Remus,” muttered Anne, “Harry did you want me to help you with your homework?”

“Seriously! You’re the best sis,” grinned Harry.

“There isn’t really all that much of it, once you get on with it,” Anne knew her brother hated homework when all he wanted to do was go flying with Sirius and his friends.

“Thanks, sis!” he beamed jumping up from the table to get out his textbooks.

“You didn’t have to do that you know,” said Remus as he passed the Prophet to Sirius and began clearing things away from the table.

“I know, but I like helping my brother!”

Harry returned to the kitchen a few minutes later with a stack of textbooks. Anne had flu called the Lovegood’s inviting Luna over for that evening and Luna was ecstatic.

“Ok Harry, which do you want to do first?” asked Anne once Harry had put down his books.

There were six essays that needed writing, but each only took a few hours. 

“If we do one in the morning and another in the afternoon, it will only take us three days!”

Harry looked appalled at the idea of having to study for three days but he knew it had to be done.

“Can we do History of Magic first then?” 

This was Harry’s least favourite subject; he just couldn’t stand Binns! He thought it was probably best to get the worst over with.

Anne and Harry managed to get through three of Harry's essays that day, History of Magic, Potions and Herbology.

“Well you’ve finished half of it” commented Remus as he served the dinner, “you can finish the over half tomorrow then and then you and Ron can have a sleepover.”

“Thanks Uncle Remus!” Harry beamed as he started his baked potato.

Luna came over just as they finished dinner and Sirius helped by making popcorn whilst Anne and Luna brought down the quilt and set up the blankets on the sofa.

Once everything was set up Remus put the first tape into the video player. Harry and Sirius didn’t want to watch a girls show as they called it so they went to go hang out in Harry’s room. Remus, on the other hand, was just as excited as the girls to watch the adaption. The show was three and a half hours long so even with starting at seven o’clock it wouldn’t be over until nearly eleven.

“That girl doesn’t look thirteen!!” shouted Remus once the show started and Anne came onto the screen, “she looks more like thirty!”

Anne nodded in agreement when the other children such as Diana and Gilbert were introduced there was the same problem.

“They’ve hired people who are nearly thirty to play thirteen-year-olds,” said Anne, “it's just not right!”

“It’ll be so they could have the same actors later in the show,” said Remus slightly annoyed.

“But at the end of the first book they’re only sixteen!!” complained Anne.

Other than this though it was an extremally good adaption, very book accurate and not too short that they had had to cut things out.

“Right!” yawned Remus crawling out from under the quilt next to Anne at the end of the film, “Bed!”

Anne and Luna carried the quilt back up to Anne’s room, Anne had a double bed so they were going to be sleeping in her room.

“Did you enjoy the show Luna?” whispered Anne as they got into bed.

“Oh yes!” muttered Luna “I saw a lot of myself in the characters, very creative, very dreamy!”

“I know what you mean!” laughed Anne.

“Goodnight Anne!”

“Goodnight Luna!”

They both fell asleep quickly and were up in time for breakfast. 

“Hi girls!” called Sirius as he fried sausages, “I thought you two would still be sleeping having stayed up half the night gossiping!”

“No,” replied Luna dreamily, “its Harry who stays up all night.”

Sirius and Anne laughed at how true Anne’s statement was.

Luna left after breakfast and Anne helped her brother through his Charms Herbology and Transfiguration homework.

“There you go Remus!” said Harry triumphantly as he finished off his last essay at five o’clock that evening.

“Well done Harry! Now was that really such a trial?” asked Remus as he prepared Bolognese for dinner.

Harry looked a bit sheepish.

‘Hey Harry, guess what I’ve been up to?” asked Sirius bouncing into the kitchen.

“What?”

“Organising a Quidditch tournament for us and the Weasleys, I’ve even invited Cedric Diggory from over the hill it's going to be a celebration for the end of all your homework!!”

“Of course, you ruddy have” muttered Remus placing down the bowls of pasta on the table.

After dinner Anne went upstairs to wash her hair, now she had finally finished with her brother’s homework the next day she and Remus were going to listen to records all day whilst Harry played Quidditch.

When Anne went to bed, she started to get the strange feeling she had started to associate with prophetic dreams. As she closed her eyes her head started to ring and her body started to be filled with something that she couldn’t quite explain, her body even began to shake!

There was a wolf again this time, tapestry’s torn into shreds, blood all over the walls. But this time there wasn’t just broken images there was also screaming. 

Anne wrote her dream down in her diary but this time she couldn’t get back to sleep, she couldn’t get that screaming out of her head!

“You look exhausted darling!” said Remus as he sat down for breakfast.

“Probably been up all night reading!” laughed Harry as he bit into his toast.

“Bad dream?”

Anne nodded. “It’s probably nothing to worry about, just Quirrell again,” Anne lied.

Remus didn’t look so sure, but he was soon distracted by the arrival of the newspaper.

At about ten o’clock the Weasleys and Cedric arrived to play Quidditch and Remus and Anne went up to Anne’s room.

“Ok then,” muttered Remus as he sorted through the records, “last time we listened to James’ music, so today is going to be a Lily day!” 

He came back over with a large stack of records.

“ABBA first,” said Remus pulling out a record, “they were one of your mum’s favourites, she watched them on Eurovision in the Easter holidays in 1974 and never stopped going about them!” Remus laughed.

Anne liked the music it was quite upbeat and lively; Remus and Anne spent a few hours dancing around the room to ABBA and Anne learnt that her mums favourite song had been Dancing Queen and that she used to dance around the common room singing it.

Remus then fished out several 60’s greatest hits albums that they had bought her.

They listened to Big Girls Don’t Cry by the Four Seasons, Rubber Ball and Take Good Care of My Baby by Bobby Vee, Will You Love Me Tomorrow by the Shirelles and Dancing in the Street

“Your mum used to love these artists, she used to fancy Roy Orbison, I think it must have been the sunglasses!”

Remus had just pulled out an album with a man on the front with a pair of huge black sunglasses.

They listened to Roy singing Pretty Woman, Only the Lonely and You Got It.

“Goodness look at the time!” exclaimed Remus checking his watch after the Orbison record. It was one o’clock and Sirius was popping his head around the door with a plate of ham sandwiches and a bowl of crisps.

“How goes the musical education?” laughed Sirius.

“Good, we’ve done Orbison and ABBA, I was thinking about doing Sinatra this afternoon.”

Sirius quickly fled from the door at the mention of the S word.

After Remus had eaten a sandwich he put away the records and got out several Frank Sinatra albums.

Anne closed her eyes and let the music wash over her. Some of the songs like Strangers in the Night and My Way were deep and emotional but other songs like New York New York made her want to get up and dance around the room Remus laughing at her.

Anne had to admit that her favourite Frank Sinatra song was definitely The Way You Look Tonight.

Then they listened to Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You.

“Maybe a bit of country” murmured Remus before returning with a record that only had one song on it.

“This one’s a bit different but it’s a classic!” laughed Remus, “Sirius hates it so you have my permission to sing it as loud as you like!”

It was called Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree

Anne quite liked it so Remus played it enough times for her to learn the lyrics. This may have been so that she could memorise it and annoy Sirius though!!

After their music fest, Anne decided that her favourite group were still The Seekers something about them had stuck.

Anne and Remus were in the kitchen preparing pizzas for everyone including all Harry’s friends. 

Anne was singing along to The Seekers record they had put on in the kitchen.

Sirius came in from garden fairly certain he was just hearing things it couldn’t be!

“There is always someone for each of us they say and you’ll be my someone forever and a day I could search the whole world until my life Is through but I know I’ll never find another you!”

Sirius stood in the kitchen doorway watching a scene he had seen hundreds of times before but not for years. Remus was listening to a record with Lily and Lily was signing in that beautiful voice of hers.

But it couldn’t be! Lily’s hair wasn’t as long as that, but that was her voice!

It wasn’t till she looked up and he saw her eyes that he realised, those weren’t Lily’s eyes.

But that was one of Lily’s favourite records, she used to play it all the time.

“Sirius are you alright?” asked Remus.

“What um yeah,” he muttered he took a closer look at the girl with the long dark red plaits, that was Anne, not Lily!

“She’s inherited her mother’s singing voice and her taste in music I know,” laughed Remus looking at Sirius expression of shock on his face.

They changed the record to Queen before everyone came in for dinner. The Weasleys were used to the music being on in this house especially Queen. Cedric thought it was excellent however because he had never heard anything like it.

Remus rounded off the evening by introducing her to Billy Joel by playing her Piano Man and Uptown Girl.

“I’m sorry to tell you this Padfoot,” laughed Remus that night once Anne had gone to bed, “but Anne shares a taste of music with me and lily rather than you and James.”

“That’s alright,” chuckled Sirius, “I can just go flying with Harry!”


	4. In Which Anne Isn't Invited To The Scamander's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Anne have their birthday party. Irwin's acting weird for some reason. And oh yeah! Lucius Malfoys a bastard!!

Anne woke up with a shock, her curtains had just been pulled open and someone was playing with her record player.

Her brother had just come charging into the room and had put Bohemian Rhapsody on at full volume.

“Happy Birthday sis!” 

“Thanks Harry,” she mumbled still half asleep turning the record down so as not to wake Sirius and Remus.

Harry and Anne passed each other their presents.

Anne had got Harry a figurine of his favourite Quidditch player which flew around the room on its broomstick.

Harry had gotten Anne a diary.

“Toms not in here is he?” asked Anne nervously remembering Riddle's diary.

“No,” chuckled Harry “it’s a dream diary!”

It was light blue leather with small flowers embroidered onto the cover.

“It only opens to the owner's touch”

“Wow thanks, Harry!”

“That’s alright!”

Anne and Harry listened to a few more records before Remus came in telling them to come down for breakfast.

Anne’s strawberries had been cut into little flowers and there was a small chocolate heart on top.

As they were eating breakfast the booklists arrived. Both Harry and Anne had to get books for their new electives Divination and Care of Magical Creatures.

They had also been sent their Hogsemede consent forms.

Remus and Sirius looked at each other nervously. They had known this would be coming.

“Are you going to sign my form?” asked Harry excitedly who had been looking forward to visiting the village since Fred and George told him about it in first year.

“Um well” stuttered Sirius, “you see the thing is……”

“No, we’re not,” said Remus gently, “it’s not safe.”

Harry looked outraged and had his mouth open ready to argue.

“Peter?” asked Anne in barely above a whisper.

Remus and Sirius nodded.

Harry didn’t argue but he still looked annoyed.

“I know it’s a pain but you’re safer at the school,” said Remus calmly.

“We hate this just as much as you do Prongslet!” said Sirius reaching to try and comfort his godson.

“I’ve wanted this for years and now I’m stopped because yet another person wants to kill me!” yelled Harry before charging off to his room.

“Don’t worry he’ll calm down,” said Remus looking at Sirius who was about to follow Harry.

“I’m going to go get up,” whispered Anne. Pettigrew even seemed to be ruining their birthday now!

Anne dressed in a light blue t-shirt and light blue denim shorts. Her hair ribbons turned a light blue which matched her eyes.

They were having everyone around that evening for the party, Remus and Anne spent the day singing to records in the kitchen whilst preparing the food for the party.

At five o’clock the guests started to arrive. They had invited Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Luna, Persephone, Padma, Lisa, Mandy, Michael, Terry, Anthony, and of course Irwin.

They all had pizza which was followed by a huge chocolate cake.

Then they opened presents.

Anne had got a huge number of books as to be expected from her year mates.

Lisa had got Anne a set of Fawlty Towers videotapes. She had written in a letter about how much the family had enjoyed the Monty Python records.

She had also got the usual chocolate from the boys in her year.

Luna had gotten Anne a box that was decorated in shells. 

‘I made it myself, Daddy took me to the seaside to collect the shells, you can keep important things in there!”

“Thank you, Luna!” said Anne hugging her first-ever real friend.

Irwin had given Anne a large book on classical world depictions in the wizarding world.

There was then the presents from Remus and Sirius.

Sirius had gotten Anne an album called Monty Python Sings which had all their songs on it. He also promised that she could get as many extra books as she liked from the bookstore.

Remus had gotten Anne a pair of headphones for her record player so that she could listen to her records at school without disturbing people. He had also got her a box which would organize her records alphabetically by artist for her.

They then put the first film on the projector. Sirius groaned slightly as Remus put it on but he knew that Anne would probably love it based on her taste in music.

A few minutes later Grease started to show on the screen. Anne loved every moment of it the love story the music the characters, it was amazing!

They got the sleeping bags out after that before they put on the Indiana Jones film.

Anne put her bag next to Lunas and noticed that Irwin had put his next to Michael and Terry’s on the other side of the garden.

When the film ended Anne noticed that Irwin was now talking to Dean and Seamus. Irwin had barely talked to her all evening. Was he avoiding her?

Anne then remembered that she was supposed to have been going to the Scamander’s again this Summer, but Irwin hadn’t invited her yet. Maybe she’d done something wrong?

Anne tried not to think about this now though. It was her birthday shed worry about it another time.

Remus and Sirius went to bed after the second film.

The kids all gathered in a circle and the boys began telling ghost stories whilst the girls did each other’s hair.

None of them hardly slept all night. They were having too much fun to sleep.

At ten o’clock the next day the parents arrived to collect their children.

Landon came in the car to collect Irwin as they only lived forty-five minutes away.

“Hello Anne!” he greeted warmly giving her a hug, “it’s a shame you couldn’t visit this Summer, the twins were looking forwards to seeing you!”

“What?” asked Anne confused.

Irwin was blushing, “I’ll explain later…” muttered Irwin before dragging his father off to the car.

What the hell was going on??

A few hours later Anne was reading in her room when Scardi, Irwin’s owl started tapping at the bedroom window.

“Hi Scardi!” said Anne giving the tawny owl a stroke before it flew back out the window to the Scamander's.

Anne opened the letter that Scardi had left her

Dear Anne,

I’m sorry I didn’t invite you round this Summer. I thought that you would want to spend some time with your family after being petrified. Also, Rolf’s freaking out about his NEWT exams that are coming up which believe me you do not want to around for!

See you in September, Irwin.

Well, I guess that explains some of it thought Anne.

A few days later Anne was sitting on her bed brushing her plaits before breakfast.

“But only the lonely, know why I cried only the lonely,” she sang softly as she tied off her plaits.

“Hey kiddo! Roy Orbison wasn't that? That guy with the funny glasses your mum used to fancy?”

Anne nodded.

“Your dad used to be really jealous of him! James was convinced when we were in our fifth year that Roy Orbison was Lily’s boyfriend from back home or something, Remus had to explain to him he was a musician”

Anne laughed as she got off the bed to go down to breakfast.

“Sirius do you want to hit Diagon today? We’ve got to get the kid's books.”

“Sure,” said Sirius.

Remus looked out the window, “it’s a bit chilly out there so don’t forget your cloaks!” he reminded them as they finished off their breakfast.

They all pulled on their cloaks and went over to the leaky cauldron via the flu network.

They went to the Quidditch shop first. They didn’t need a new broom, but they had the firebolt.

“Wow!” muttered Harry his face pressed up to the glass. 

“Please Moony!” begged Sirius looking at his best friend.

“No!” said Remus firmly, “neither of you need a new broom, it is an unnecessary extravagance!” 

Sirius started to sulk but cheered up when they visited Dervish and Bangs the joke shop.

“Harry,” muttered Remus, “stop growing, you need new school robes again!”

His robes had been new at the beginning of the second year but Harry had another growth spurt and they were now at least half a foot to short.

They walked over to Madam Malkins; they were going to go muggle clothes shopping afterward as well.

They walked into the robe shop to find none other than Draco Malfoy and his father.

They nearly left the shop instantly. The last time they had met up Malfoys father it hadn’t ended well. Sirius had wrestled with Lucius in Flourish and Blotts and Anne had hyperventilated under one of the tables of books.

“Ok look who it is?” drawled Lucius whilst his son was fitted for dress robes.

“It’s Potter and the Werewolf!” he said sneering at Anne and Remus. Harry and Sirius were browsing the racks of robes.

Malfoy was the one who had given Ginny the diary last year and helped open the chamber of secrets.

“I hear that whilst your brother was busy saving the school last June, you were petrified in the Hospital Wing. Convenient that isn’t it? You didn’t have to find the guts to face the monster because you were nice and safe!”

Anne wanted to say that it was Lucius’ fault the chamber was opened in the first place but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Remus placed a hand protectively on Anne’s shoulder.

“It’s a shame you didn’t kill that other monster while you were at it!” laughed Lucius looking at Remus who still hadn’t said a word. Remus went off to find Sirius for back up

Anne was burning with rage, he had just insulted Remus. Called him a monster that deserved to be put down! Anne wanted to scream at him and yell that he was lying Remus wasn’t a monster.

Anne opened her mouth to try and argue but nothing came out. 

She ran out of the shop and found a quiet alleyway to curl up on the ground and hyperventilate.

Remus ran out of the robe shop a few moments later followed by Sirius and Harry. 

“Anne!” called Sirius searching frantically.

“Anne Sis!”

“Sweetheart where’d you go?” said Remus panicking.

“Have you seen a girl with dark red plaits in a purple cloak?” Sirius asked passers-by whilst Remus checked the alleyways.

“Anne there you are! Thank god!” Remus cried in relief when he found her.

“Remus?” asked Anne confused.

“Hi sweetheart, it's ok now,” 

“She’s over here Sirius!” 

“Thank the bloody gods!” sighed Sirius, “you scared the daylights out of us!” Sirius screamed when Remus brought her out from the side street.

“You can't run away like that, especially not now what with Peter” he ranted.

“Calm down Sirius!” whispered Remus concernedly.

Anne had gone into lockdown and had slumped against the wall and was slowly slipping to the ground in the middle of Diagon Alley.

“Sorry,” muttered Sirius, “I was just scared!”

“Anne,” said Remus gently “Anne can you hear me, darling?”

Anne nodded.

“I understand why you got upset with Malfoy, I was getting upset with him too which is why I went for Sirius. I shouldn’t have left you on your own like that and I’m sorry!”

“That’s ok” she muttered.

“But you shouldn’t have run out like that, it's not safe right now and we didn’t know where you were. Do you understand?” he asked in a gentle tone.

Anne nodded.

“Right then do you want to come to the bookshop whilst Harry and Sirius get Harry's robes?”

Anne nodded.

Remus helped Anne back off the ground and they went off to the bookshop.

The man in the bookshop almost fainted when they said they needed two copies of A Monster Book of Monsters.

Anne was handed a book that tried to attack her almost instantly it terrified her! But then she thought Uncle Remus stroked her hair when she got upset so she tried stroking the books fur.

The book stopped trying to bite her instantly and started to purr slightly before falling open.

The assistant in the bookshop stared at her in shock for a few moments. 

“How did you do that?” stuttered the assistant.

“It seemed upset, so I stroked it,” Anne shrugged.

“Well there’s a turn up for the books, you stroke them!” he muttered as he led them over to the divination table.

They needed a copy of Unfogging the Future for Harry and they got several books on dream divining and prophesies for Anne.

They also got a couple of History of Magic books and a new book on Astronomy.

Anne and Remus laughed when they saw the latest Lockhart book on display, My Year at Hogwarts.

They even got Anne a small book called, What To Do If You Have A Panic Attack.

They then met up with Harry and Sirius and shrunk all the parcels before popping through to muggle London to buy some more muggle clothes for the twins.

They had plenty of homemade jumpers because they got one every year from Mrs. Weasley.  
But Harry had grown out of nearly everything, so he needed new jeans, sweatshirts, trainers, t-shirts even all his socks appeared to have holes in them. 

Anne got some new jumpers and a new pair of jeans. They found a simply styled jumper that fit her, and she liked and then bought it in four colors, light pink, dark purple, cream, and turquoise.

She also needed new pajamas, so they got her two pairs of light pink flannel pajamas and a new dressing gown.

Although she was thirteen Anne didn’t need a bra yet.

“That’s something we can look forward to buying next year!” muttered Sirius as they walked back to the Leaky Cauldron with all the shopping.

By the time they got back to Elm Grove, it was six o’clock. 

“Thank God we didn’t take the car!” said Sirius, “that would have added another seven hours into the day!”

The shopping had taken so long because they had had to visit Muggle London as well as Diagon Alley.

“Well go on kids” prompted Remus as he started measuring pasta, “go unpack your things!”

Harry and Anne ran upstairs to put away their new books and clothes and then had a quick dinner before bed.


	5. Emergency- Code Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne becomes a woman
> 
> \- note- the episode described at the end of this chapter is as bizarre as it sounds. If you have even a slight interest in British Television I would highly recommend that you watch Fawlty Towers as it is a classic.

Sirius not for the first time in his life was woken by Anne screaming in the night. He was used to this as she had frequent nightmares. Who could blame with all she’s been through? Sirius groaned as he pulled himself out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown.

“Hey kiddo, nightmare again?” he asked from the doorway.

“No,” Anne cried, “I think I’m dying!” she screamed.

“What?” asked Sirius confused he has still half asleep.

“I’m bleeding!” Anne got out of bed and indicated her bedsheets which were covered in blood.

“Shit!” he muttered Sirius under his breath. “Moony, we’ve got a situation here!”

“There’s no need to shout I’m already here!” he yawned, Remus had been woken up the screaming and the shouting.

“Emergency code red,” said Sirius before turning to leave.

“Code red?” asked Remus curiously but then he saw the bedsheets.

“Ah,” he sighed.

He sat down next to Anne on the bed who was now sobbing hysterically.

“Anne dear, do you remember biology class, from before we started Hogwarts?”

Anne nodded, she never forgot anything!

“Do you remember me teaching you and Harry about the menstrual cycle?” 

She nodded again.

“Well, I’m afraid you’ve started your cycle.”

“So I’m going to have to put up with this every month!” she screamed.

Remus nodded.

“What’s going on?” asked Harry sleepily.

Anne hid under the covers.

“Go back to bed Harry!” said Remus exasperated. Getting Harry involved was the last thing he needed.

Remus went to the bathroom cabinet and pulled out a box of pads that they had had in there for when Anne started her cycle.

“Here,” said Remus gently, “you attach these to your pants.”

Remus then cast scourgify in the bedsheets and the blood vanished.

“Thanks,” cried Anne softly.

“Hey, do you know what this means though?” asked Remus pulling her in for a hug. “It means you can’t be my little princess anymore!”

“Why not?” asked Anne confused.

“Because you’re a woman now!” he chuckled softly stroking her hair.

“Do you want to try to get some more sleep?” asked Remus after a while.

Anne nodded and got back into bed.

“Remus?” Anne called tiredly as he was on his way out the door.

‘Yes, darling?”

“Thanks,” Anne fell asleep within moments.

The next morning Remus came down early to make the breakfast.

“Well you were a great help last night!” he muttered as Sirius came down.

“Hey, I made you aware of the situation!” protested Sirius.

“Yeah, but you didn’t help, you’ve always been scared of girls’ periods, you remember how much Lily used to freak you out?” chuckled Remus as he whisked eggs.

“Yeah, but that was only because her temper was even worse that week!” laughed Sirius as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“What happened last night?” asked Harry as he came bouncing into the room.

“Your sister has started her monthly cycle,” explained Remus as he added bacon to the frying pan.

“Brilliant!!” said Harry, “can I ask her what it’s like? Does this mean she’ll be growing boobs soon?”

“Harry please leave your sister alone, this is a very sensitive time,” Remus explained calmly as he served the breakfast.

“Yeah code red,” laughed Sirius, “also known as do not disturb!”

At this moment Anne came down the stairs for breakfast. She still had her pajamas and dressing gown on and clearly hadn’t done her hair yet that day. She also looked like she hadn’t slept much because of the bags under her eyes.

“Morning kiddo!” called Sirius cheerfully.

“Hey, Sis!” called Harry.

Anne just glared at them. This was not a good morning!

Remus placed a bowl of fruit in front of her. Strawberries which were usually her favorites, but Anne didn’t really feel hungry that morning, her stomach was in agony!

“You not hungry?” asked Harry as he ate his bacon and eggs.

Anne shook her head.

“Maybe you should go back to bed dear, you look exhausted!” said Remus gently at the end of breakfast.

Anne went back upstairs and got back into bed. She didn’t get out a book or even put a record on. What she needed was sleep but she just couldn’t seem to get any.

Half an hour later there was a knock on the door.

“Go away!” she groaned into her pillow.

Harry came bouncing into the room anyway. “Hey, Sis! You want to hang out!”

“Go away!” she called more loudly this time.

“But I want to hang out with you!” protested Harry, “we never spend any time together anymore!”

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

Harry stared at her. Anne never screamed at anyone.

“Harry,” said Remus gently coming into the room, “I thought we said to leave your sister alone?”

Harry got up off the bed grumbling and went to go find his broomstick. 

“Here take these,” said Remus passing Anne a glass of water and a number of tablets.

“They are pain killers, they’ll make you feel better, I promise!”

Anne nodded uncertainly but took the tablets all the same.

“Do you want me to read to you, would that make you feel better?” asked Remus picking up one of the Anne books from the shelf.

Anne closed her eyes and shrugged. 

She listened to the story of Anne Shirley with her eyes shut. She must have drifted off to sleep at some point because the next thing she knew Remus wasn’t there.

There was another light knocking at the door. Anne lifted her head slightly from the pillows.

Remus was coming in with a plate of sandwiches on a tray.

“You feeling any better dear?” he asked placing the tray down on the bed.

“A bit,” she muttered.

She did feel a bit better as she had gotten a few hours of sleep. She managed to eat half a ham sandwich but that was all she could manage.

“Hey Anne,” called Sirius nervously from the doorway, “me and Harry were wondering if you’d like to come down to the sitting room.”

Anne looked uncertain; she was feeling a bit better having slept some but she still felt terrible.

“You can bring your duvet and quilt with you,” he offered.

Anne shrugged, how bad could it be?

When Anne got downstairs Remus helped her set up her duvet and quilt on one of the sofas.

Harry was fiddling with the video player trying to put a tape in.

“We were trying to think what would cheer you up,” explained Sirius.

“And then we remembered one of your birthday presents!” laughed Harry showing her a box. It was the Fawlty Towers video box with John Cleese smirking from the cover.

Anne thought that this was brilliant. She had heard the records of the Pythons, but she had never actually watched any of them on tape.

“Here,” said Sirius coming over with a mug of hot blackcurrant and apple squash. Anne didn’t like tea or coffee, but hot squash sometimes made her feel slightly better when she was feeling poorly.

Harry pressed play on the first tape, and everyone settled into the sofa. Harry was right! It did cheer her up, Basil Fawlty was just so stupid and Manuel was so clueless that it made her laugh. They watched all four tapes, pausing in-between season one and two to have a quick dinner of pasta before watching season two. 

“That was brilliant!’ laughed Remus as he brought over the dinners.

They had just finished watching the last episode in season one.

“When he started doing the goose-stepping!” cackled Sirius as he sprinkled cheese on his pasta.

“I loved the fire drill, there was just so much chaos!” added Harry.

“What about the talking moose?” asked Anne, “when Manuel was practicing his English and the Major thought that the moose was talking!” laughed Anne, “That had me in stitches!”

“Definitely the best episode yet!” exclaimed Harry.

“I don’t think you can really have a best episode,” reasoned Remus, “they’re all good for different reasons.”

After dinner, they put on the third tape and started season two. By the time they had watched all twelve episodes, it was ten o’clock and Anne was exhausted.

“Thanks for cheering me up guys,” said Anne giving Harry and Sirius a hug. “Sorry if I’ve been such a grouch today!”

“That’s ok Sis, I like doing something to cheer you up!” laughed Harry as he rewinded the videotapes.

“I guess we’d better get used to you two being in foul moods, you’re teenagers now!” said Sirius.

Anne carried her duvet and quilt back upstairs and went back to bed. Today wasn’t as bad as it might have been, but according to Remus, this could last anything up to a week!


	6. Irwin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irwin continues to act strange until Mandy and Anthony force him to tell Anne whats up

Anne checked the clock as she woke up. It was half past four in the morning, she had just had the same dream again the wolf the blood covered walls the screaming.

There wasn’t even any point in trying to get back to sleep. She’d have to be up in an hour anyway. It was the first of September. 

She checked that all her books were packed before packing away her record player, records and headphones.

She got dressed in a pair of jeans and a lilac jumper and did her hair, put her school robes and hairbrush in her satchel with a book on advanced charms.

She then sat down on the top of her bed to start reading Michael Palins Around the World in Eighty Days. It was a fascinating book, and he seemed to kind as well as funny.

“Anne sweetheart?” called Remus.

Anne looked up from her book.

“Breakfast.”

“Ok,” she said hopping off her bed head still in her book.

Remus took the book from her and placed it in the satchel.

“Remus!” protested Anne.

Remus gave her a look which said no arguments, “no books at mealtimes!”

“Alright.”

Sirius was sitting at the kitchen table looking more than slightly flustered.

“You alright Uncle Sirius?” asked Harry as he tucked into his sausages.

“What?” asked Sirius, “um yeah, just a bit nervous!”

“Fair enough,” said Harry before returning to his breakfast.

This year it wasn’t just Harry and Anne returning to Hogwarts, Sirius was going to be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year.

“Christ!” shouted Remus looking at his watch, “look at the bloody time, it's quarter past six!”

“Have you two packed everything?” asked Sirius as he finished the last bite of his breakfast.

“Hmm” muttered Anne pulling at her plaits.

Harry nodded.

“Have you though Uncle Pads?”

Sirius looked as if he was checking a mental list for a moment, “Yep!” he replied.

“Well then what are we waiting for, luggage in the hallway now!” said Remus placing the plates in the sink.

Fifteen minutes later they had managed to fit three trunks, an owl and three satchels into the boot of the car through some weird kind of jigsaw puzzle.

They left Elm Grove at half-past six in the morning and got to Kings Cross at ten o’clock.  
They found the barrier between platforms nine and ten, Harry went through first and then Sirius, Remus and Anne went through last.

When they reached platform nine and three quarters there was only one family there.

“Hi Irwin!” called Harry as he pulled his trolley over to the train.

“Hi Harry! How was your summer?” he asked enthusiastically.

“Pretty good actually, got loads of flying in!”

“Hi Irwin,” said Anne.

“Oh, um hi Anne,” he said awkwardly.

“Why don’t we go find a compartment,” she muttered pulling her trunk away from the Scamander’s.

Sirius and Anne eventually found a compartment, Harry wanted his own compartment so he could sit with the other third-year Gryffindors.

Sirius had just finished loading his and Anne’s trunks into the luggage compartment when Landon poked his head around the door.

“Do you want to go in here son?” asked Landon calling down the corridor, “Anne’s in here.”

“Um no thanks dad,” said Irwin before sitting in a compartment on his own.

Anne pulled out her book and tried to ignore Irwin. Why was he avoiding her, what had she done wrong?

Anne was so deeply absorbed in Michael Palin that she didn’t notice Luna, Ginny, Neville and Anthony join her in her compartment.

The compartment talked away for a few hours, but Anne didn’t feel like joining she just wasn’t in the mood, so she decided to hide behind her book instead of talking.

She was halfway through the book when she heard someone calling for her.

“Anne, Anne kiddo,” said Sirius nudging her gently, “lunch?”

“Oh right,” she said absentmindedly taking out her chicken and spinach sandwiches and nibbling at one behind her book.

Sirius shrugged, “so you kids excited for school?”

“At least we’ll have a competent Defence teacher this year,” said Anthony.

“Thank you, Anthony, I take that as the greatest compliment!”

“Will you be teaching us about repelling nargles?” asked Luna dreamily.

“I’ll try Luna!” laughed Sirius.

The compartment chuckled.

They talked for another hour or so, and then the train began to stop.

“We’re not at school, yet are we?” asked Ginny looking out the window.

“No, it’s not quite time yet,” said Anthony checking his watch.

Anne felt a sudden chill come into the compartment and she looked up from her book. There was a dark hooded creature standing in the compartment doorway.

Anne heard screaming; somebody was getting tortured!!

Next thing she knew she was lying on the floor of the compartment with her book lying on the floor next to her.

“Anne!” she heard someone calling for her, “Anne! Anne kiddo can you hear me?” he asked urgently.

“Sirius?” she asked confused looking up at the ceiling.

Sirius picked her up off the floor and placed her back on one of the seats.

“Eat this Anne,” said Sirius passing everyone some chocolate.

“That was bloody terrifying!” muttered Anthony.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” cried Neville.

Ginny sat in her seat shaking, Luna with her arm around her.

“Screaming! There was someone screaming!” flustered Anne.

“There was no screaming Anne,” Anthony explained calmly.

“Anne eat your bloody chocolate,” laughed Sirius from the doorway, the other children had been eating theirs whilst talking.

“You’ll feel better,” Sirius reassured her.

Anne nibbled on a small piece of chocolate.

Sirius shrugged, at least she had had a small piece, “we’ll be at the school in about fifteen minutes, you guys will want to get changed.”

Anne was already changed into her robes, but she didn’t even feel like reading so she stared out the window instead whilst the others all got changed.

When the train stopped they got on the horseless carriage, that took them up to the school. When they arrived at the entrance hall Flitwick seemed to be waiting for her. 

“Miss Potter can we have a word?” asked tiny Professor Flitwick gently.

“Um ok,” she whispered.

She followed him back to his office.

“Are you alright Miss Potter?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The dementors, Sirius wrote that you had fainted.”

“Oh right,” she muttered, “I’m not sure.”

“Have you had any chocolate?”

Anne shook her head slightly.

“Not really no sir” she muttered.

“I think you should see Madam Pomfrey.”

Madam Pomfrey appeared to be waiting outside to be invited in.

“Hmmm” she murmured as she felt Anne’s forehead, “cold and clammy, you need chocolate.”

Anne just stared down at her shoes.

“You wont feel any better until you eat some chocolate dear,” said Madam Pomfrey in a tone that was calm but still expressed no arguments.

Anne took a small piece of chocolate and ate it.

“Any better?”

Anne shrugged.

She checked her forehead again, “hmmm, you’re still a bit clammy, I’ll check you again after dinned alright?”

Anne nodded and went down to the Great Hall where the rest of her friends were already sat. There was still a space left between Anthony and Luna.

The other Ravenclaws were all looking at her nervously, they were probably worried that she was going to faint again!

“Are you alright Anne?” asked Luna.

“hmmm,” said Anne as food began to appear at the table. She had already missed the sorting then!

Anne picked at a piece of grilled chicken and pasta whilst everyone else talked away. If the dementors hadn’t been bad enough, Irwin still seemed not to be talking to her.

The end of the meal couldn’t have come soon enough, Anthony managed to persuade her to have spoonfuls of chocolate ice cream for pudding. Then Dumbledore told the school that the dementors were going to be a permanent fixture at the school because of Pettigrew.

Why did that man have to ruin her life? No Hogsmeade and now thanks to him those creepy cark things would be hanging around all year!

Anthony took her to the Hospital Wing quickly after dinner.

“Well Mr Goldstein, you can take your friend back to the common room now, although to be honest, I’m surprised you’re not Mr Scamander!”  
Anthony chuckled slightly as they started their way up to Ravenclaw Tower.

“Thanks for looking after me this evening Anthony,” Anne muttered before they went into the common room.

“That’s ok, anything for a friend!”

Anne noticed when they walked in that the third years stopped the conversation as if they had just stopped talking about her.

Irwin looked at her for a second and then left for his dormitory.

Anne ran up to her dormitory in tears. What the hell had she done to upset him?

Anne heard several pairs of shoes follow her in through the door.

“Anne, what’s up?” asked Persephone.

Anne just cried into her pillow.

She felt someone jump onto her bed.

“Anne, what is it?” asked Mandy.

“Irwin.”

“What about him?” asked Padma evasively.

“He’s been avoiding me all summer” she sobbed, “I think I’ve done something wrong!”

“I’m sure its nothing!” said Lisa, “he’s just being weird!”

Anne decided that the other four girls were right. They gave each a funny look as she got off the bed but it only lasted a second. 

They then all unpacked their trunks.

“Is that a record player?” asked Persephone.

“Uh-huh,” Anne nodded unpacking her books.

“Can we put some tracks on?” asked Lisa riffling through her record collection.

“Sure,” shrugged Anne.

Lisa and Anne eventually decided to introduce the other three girls to ABBA.

They were soon dancing about the room and when Anne went to bed, she had forgotten all about Irwin and the dementors.

The next day though, Anne went down to read her book in the common room as usual, but Irwin didn’t join her, she eventually had to go down to breakfast with the other four girls.

They were handed out their timetables over breakfast.

“Ok guys, we’ve got Herbology, Potions and Charms today all doubles,” said Michael scanning the column.

Anne usually shared a table with Persephone Anthony and Irwin. Irwin wasn’t at her Herbology table, but he had swapped with Michael, Anne tried to ignore this.

In potions, however, Anne went over to her usual desk only to be joined by Anthony instead of Irwin. 

When the same thing happened in Charms class after lunch Anne knew that there was no way that this could all be a coincidence.

After Charms, Anne went to dinner and Irwin was sitting at the opposite end of the Ravenclaw from her.

Anne was staring out the window not even feeling like doing her homework.

“I’ve had enough of this!” shouted Mandy.

She nodded at Anthony and they dragged Anne and Irwin up to the boy’s dorm. The boys weren’t allowed in the girl’s dorms.

“What the hell is going on!” protested Irwin as Anthony dragged him up the stairs.

Then he saw Anne looking just as confused and tried to bolt for the open door.

“You’re not getting away that easily!” said Anthony who had just locked and shut the door and was now leaning against it.

“Ok Irwin, I know you didn’t want to say anything to her but this is getting ridiculous, Anne is getting upset she thinks it’s something she’s done!”

“What?” asked Irwin looking shocked, “no she hasn’t done anything wrong she never could!”

“Then tell her the real reason you’re avoiding her before you make the whole year group miserable!”

Anne looked up, so she hadn’t just been imagining it! Irwin had been avoiding her all summer!!

“Ok we’re leaving, tell us when you're done,” said Mandy whilst she and Anthony left the room.

“Oh, Merlin I don’t know where to start!” Irwin muttered. They hadn’t been alone like this for a long time, not since before she had been petrified.

“Ok well I’ve always liked you Anne, but I never realised how much until you were petrified, I was lost, wouldn’t eat hardly slept, if it hadn't been for Rolf and the others I wouldn’t have kept myself together!”

Anne nodded that she understood, “If I mean so much to you,” she asked confused “then why avoid me?” pulling at her plaits

“Because” he stuttered. “I was avoiding you in case you didn’t feel the same way, I didn’t want to freak you out. I don’t like you as a friend Anne, I don’t think I ever have, I love you, Anne!”

Anne looked up from her shoes. “Irwin,” Anne began slowly looking up at the boy with the dark red hair falling in front of his eyes, “I love you too,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?” asked Irwin in shock not believing what he had heard.

“ I love you too!” she cried in relief that she hadn’t done anything wrong to upset Irwin. “I’ve always felt something special about you from when we met on the train on the first day,” Anne dug around in her satchel until she found an old chocolate frog card at the bottom of her bag which she passed to Irwin.

“Circe?” asked Irwin curiously, “the one I gave you on the day we met?”

Anne nodded.

“You have carried this card in your bag for two years?”

“Yes,” she muttered.

Irwin pulled himself slightly closer to Anne for a light kiss. When Irwin tried to pull away however Anne didn’t let him, she liked it. Irwin smelt citrussy and tasted slightly chocolaty. She felt his hands softly stroke her hair and she felt safe.

They kissed for a while and then went back downstairs holding hands.

When they arrived back in the Common Room the third years and about a third of the rest of the house was staring at them.

Anne stared down at her shoes and began to pull at her plaits because there were so many people staring at her, Irwin put his arm around her shoulders, and she felt slightly better.

“Well?” asked Michael and Terry expectantly.

Irwin nodded at them beaming.

“Well thank Merlin for that!” exclaimed Padma before returning to Luna's hair.

“Well Michael?” asked Anthony now that the problem of Anne and Irwin had been sorted, “how’s about a game of chess?”

Anne got out her book on advanced charms and sat down on one of the sofas. Irwin sat down next to her and read over her shoulder. Not much had changed, Irwin was still reading over her, but Anne did notice that now he had his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t mind though, it made her feel safe!

After a few hours at about ten o’clock, Anne and Irwin got up as it was getting late. Irwin gave Anne one last kiss in front of the staircase to the girl's dormitories.

When Anne reached her dorm she found five girls in their pyjamas waiting for her. Luna was in there as well. They were all grinning like Cheshire Cats.

“What?” asked Anne as she brushed out her plaits.

“We knew you two would get together,” laughed Padma.

“Oh really?” Anne muttered.

“Oh yeah,” said Persephone knowingly propped up on her arms on her bed. “We’ve all known you two would get together since first year.”

Anne blushed.

“Some of the older years even had bets on how long it would take!” said Lisa.

“Most of them didn’t think you’d get together until till at least fifth year, but when you got petrified everyone moved their bets closer.” 

“Is it really that obvious?” blushed Anne tying off her plaits.

“Oh yes,” said Luna dreamily, “you two are made for each other!”

“You don’t mind do you?” asked Padma noticing how red Anne’s face was.

“No, no of course not, it's just I don’t like people talking about me,” she muttered.

“It was in a good way,” defended Persephone.

“I know, I just don’t like being the centre of attention.”

The girls spent an hour or so gossiping and discussing what it had been like to kiss Irwin for the first time and then Luna went off to her own dorm and the other girls went to bed too.

Anne fell asleep but there were no strange dreams that night, all she dreamt about was her new boyfriend Irwin.


	7. Thats not a Grim Professor...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne has her first Divination and Care of Magical Creatures lessons.
> 
> So Anne and Irwin have got together finally, and I am back finally!! Finished my undergrad- the relief is beyond real. Anne and Irwin's relationship is obviously not going to be physical yet- they are only thirteen- but give it a few years and they'll get there

The next morning Anne woke up, took a shower, and did her plaits as usual but today there was a huge goofy grin plastered all over her face. She checked her watch and saw it was only quarter to seven, so she packed her bag for the day and then walked down to the common room to finish reading Michael Palin.

She curled up in a large armchair to read her book. After a while, other people began to appear heading down for breakfast.

“Morning,” said Irwin kissing her on the top of the head disturbing her from her book. “And how is my beautiful girl today?”

Anne blushed. She wasn’t used to being complimented like this. “I’m good thank you,” she replied, “want to go get some breakfast?”

“Sure!” Irwin beamed, he picked up both their schoolbags and put an arm around Anne’s waist and they walked down to the Great Hall together. 

This wouldn’t be so bad, she had worried that now she and Irwin were together everything was going to change but clearly not, he was the same Irwin.

She changed her opinion on this very quickly though when she entered the Great Hall. It was only eight o’clock, but the room was already steadily filling up and full of people chattering over their breakfasts. When she and Irwin entered the room though dozens of pairs of eyes began staring at them. 

If the night before in the common room had been bad enough this was worse, and she should have known it would be coming. Hogwarts was terrible when it came to gossiping and rumors so naturally the whole school now knew that she and Irwin were a couple even though they had only got together twelve hours before.

The Slytherins were smirking at her from the other side of the hall and the Weasley twins looked like they were nearly in hysterics because they could not believe that the rumors were actually true!

“Come on,” muttered Irwin glaring at the people who were staring at them.

Anne helped herself to some grapes and apple slices and started to pick at her breakfast trying to ignore the eyes of all the people staring at her.

“Don’t worry,” said Irwin, “they’ll stop after a while!” he reassured her whilst buttering his second piece of toast.

“What we got today?” asked Michael.

“Um,” muttered Padma scanning her schedule, “double runes and double potions this morning, and then care of magical creatures this afternoon.”

“I don’t take runes,” he pointed out.

“We’ve got divination,” pointed out Persephone.

“Oh,” groaned Terry, “we’re going to regret taking that aren’t we?” he asked looking at Michael.

“You should have taken runes mate!” laughed Anthony.

“It’s a shame that I’m taking runes I wish I was taking divination now!” said Irwin.

Terry and Michael started making fake gagging noises and the girls began giggling.

“That’s just because you don’t want to leave your new girlfriend!” chortled Anthony.

“You know what you’re right!”

The Ravenclaws were finishing off their breakfast when Harry came over to their table with Ron and Hermione.

“I hear congratulations are in order!” laughed Harry.

“Yeah when’s the big day?” asked Ron.

“Ignore them they’re just being stupid!” said Hermione, “but seriously you two are made for each other” she gushed.

“Um thanks?” said Anne.

“Do you guys know where the divination classroom is?” asked Terry.

Harry pulled out his map and scanned it for a few minutes. 

“There it is!” he pointed at a tower on the other side of the castle.  
“We’d best get a move on then!” said Ron picking up his bag.

“I’ll see you in potions,” said Irwin giving Anne one last kiss on the lips before she left for divination

There was a lot of wolf-whistling and catcalling particularly from the Slytherins as Anne left the great hall with the rest of the group. After climbing far too many stairs they eventually reached the divination tower.

“The map must be wrong!” groaned Michael when they reached an empty corridor.

“The maps never wrong!” protested Harry, but he wasn’t so sure himself.

“No, we are in the right place look!” Parvati pointed at a trapdoor in the ceiling which had a silver sign on it saying Divination Classroom- Sybil Trelawney. At that moment the door sprung open and a ladder came down. The students climbed the ladder into the classroom and arrived in a room which was very stuffy and full of multicolored poufs.

The Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins all settled onto little poufs two to a table, Anne was sharing with Persephone and Michael and Terry were at the next table over.

A woman with overly large spectacle and multiple multi-colored shawls which clashed horribly with each other stood at the front of the room.

“Good morning class!” she said in a vague and barely audible tone. If it was possible thought Anne this woman was even more dreamy than Luna, and that was saying something!

Professor Trelawney introduced herself and then passed out pots of tea and china cups and told them to read their tea leaves.

Anne had done this many times before at the Lovegood’s but still enjoyed doing it. 

Anne and Persephone drank their scalding tea and then consulted their books on how to interpret the tea leaves. Anne’s cup today seemed to have several images at the bottom, which looked like three animals. A wolf which was hardly surprising considering her dreams at the moment, what may have been a rat and what looked like either a worm or a snake.

Anne didn’t even bother to look up the wolf in the book, the rat apparently meant hard work and so did the worm, the snake meant cunning or deviousness. This was hardly surprising considering the other snakes she knew she thought as she looked over at the Slytherins who were still chuckling at her about Irwin.

Anne looked up from the book to find professor Trelawney trying to predict Harry’s death claiming that his cup had the Grim in it

Anne walked over to her brother's table and took a look at the cup, there was an animal there but not a Grim.

“Professor, that’s not a Grim, that’s a wolf,” said Anne checking his cup.

Professor Trelawney took another look at the cup.

“Ah yes dear so it is,” she said taking a second look, “and could you tell me what the wolf means?”

“It may mean there’s a full moon coming, which it is it’s in two days or it could be trying to warn you of coming danger.”

“Correct! Five points to Ravenclaw!” said Professor Trelawney clearly pleased to have someone this interested in her class who actually knew what they were doing.

At the end of the class, Anne was very pleased, Divination was just good as she had hoped it would be. Yes, the teacher was a bit weird, but seeing as she had learnt everything, she already knew about the subject from the Lovegood’s the fact that Professor Trelawney was a bit weird didn’t faze her. 

The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs met up with the rest of their year group outside the potion’s classroom.

“How was Divination?” asked Anthony smirking

“Terrible,” said Michael and Terry.

“Great!” said Persephone and Anne. 

The third years laughed, but they stopped laughing very soon because Professor Snape had arrived on the scene.

They got out their potions homework and handed in their holiday essays before Anne and Irwin set up their cauldrons at their usual desk at the front of the class.

“Did you miss me?” asked Irwin as they prepared their ingredients.

Anne nodded laughing slightly, “I was only gone and an hour and a half!”

“I know but I missed you so much!” he whispered.

Anne blushed. They had to stop talking after this as they had to concentrate on making their potion.

When lunch came along everyone was very hungry. The Ravenclaws sat down at their table to discuss the lessons that day.  
“You should have seen Anne!” laughed Terry, “she corrected Trelawney and then got given points!”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if she hadn’t been trying to predict my brother’s death,” muttered Anne, as she served herself Macaroni and Cheese with garlic bread and some peas.

Halfway through lunch Sirius came over to their table and started glaring at Irwin.

“Um have I done something wrong?” he asked nervously, Sirius was giving Irwin a death glare.

“If you hurt my little girl I swear!” started Sirius in a menacing tone, but then he started laughing, “I’m sorry!” he chortled “I just cant do it!”

“Um, I’d never hurt Anne I love her,” stuttered Irwin looking slightly more relieved as he knew why Sirius had been looking at him strangely.

“Good,” said Sirius who had stopped laughing, “because if you ever do hurt her you will have to deal with me.”

“Um ok”

“Good,” said Sirius turning away now he had sorted that out, “oh and Anne, call Remus tonight he worries about you.”

“Well that was weird,” said Irwin once Sirius had left.

Nobody heard him though, they were all far too busy laughing.

After lunch, they all headed down to the ground for Care of Magical Creatures. All the Ravenclaws took this apart from Anthony and Padma who both took Arithmancy.

“Oh, look its Potter and her new boyfriend!” cackled Pansy as they came towards Hagrid’s hut.

“Don’t fancy her much Scamander, couldn’t you have somebody who was a bit less of a freak?” drawled Malfoy, “or did you just feel sorry for her?”

Irwin was boiling out and was clearly very close to lashing out at Malfoy.

“Ignore them mate,” said Michael placing a hand on Irwin’s shoulder, “they’re just jealous.”

Irwin nodded firmly and put his arm back around Anne protectively. 

Hagrid came out a few moments after that and led them over to a small paddock near the forbidden forest.  
“Well get your books out!” he told them.

People began to rummage in their bags for books but nearly everyone had belted or taped them shut. Lisa had used several bull clips. The only people’s books who weren’t like that were Harry and Anne’s because Anne had figured out how to open hers. 

“Only two of you figured out how to open them?” said Hagrid disappointed.

Well, only one actually, thought Anne, she had figured out you had to stroke them and then showed Harry, she wasn’t going to tell Hagrid that though, he seemed disappointed enough already.

Anne and Harry helped Hagrid show the others how to open their books.

“Now then does anyone know what these are?” Hagrid asked pointing towards the creatures in the paddock. 

Both Anne and Irwin’s hands shot right into the air. Hagrid nodded at them.

“Hippogriffs,” they said simultaneously. They had both helped Newt feed his hippogriffs the previous Summer. There were about seven hippogriffs one tawny, one grey and one was even snowy white

“Right you are!” laughed Hagrid. “Would anyone like to stroke one?”

The rest of the class seemed slightly wary, but Anne and Irwin stepped forward having dealt with Hippogriffs before. 

Irwin was paired up with a tawny male hippogriff called Buckbeak and Anne bowed to a grey hippogriff called Apollo. As Anne and Irwin bowed to and then stroked their hippogriffs Hagrid explained how to care for the creatures to the rest of the class, he particularly warned them not to insult the Hippogriffs. 

After a while Irwin flew Buckbeak around the paddock, Hagrid asked if Anne wanted to go for a ride as well, but Anne didn’t like flying much so stayed on the ground where it was safer.

Hagrid then divided the Hippogriffs between the rest of the class, there was enough for about three to a Hippogriff. Anne and Irwin watched the others bow to and then stroke the Hippogriffs.

Malfoy along with Crabbe and Goyle had been paired with Buckbeak. It had been going well, Malfoy had bowed to him and had been bowed back to, and then stroked Buckbeak on the nose. Then Malfoy seemed to think it was a good idea to call him an “ugly great brute” which did not end well because Buckbeak then attacked him and broke Malfoys arm.

“This is not going to be the end of this,” muttered Irwin as Hagrid carried Malfoy off to the Hospital Wing, Anne was staring in shock at where Malfoy had been stood seconds before, she had a feeling that Irwin was right, this was not going to be the end of this.


	8. A Waking Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Gang learns how to deal with Boggarts, with a bit of help from Sirius and the Slytherins

The Ravenclaws ate a very rushed dinner, Anne didn’t even touch her food. How had a day that was going so well ended so badly? It was all bloody Malfoys fault!

Irwin looked over at Anne nervously as he finished his steak and kidney pie. “Not hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Why don’t we go call Remus? You haven’t talked to him in a few days?”

“Yeah, he might even know how to deal with Malfoy!” laughed Mandy.

The thought of talking to her favorite Uncle did cheer her up slightly so they left the Great Hall and headed up to the Common Room. Anne got her mirror down from her dorm and found the others all waiting eagerly for her.

“Remus!” she called clearly into the mirror, “Remus!”

“Hello?” he answered. Remus looked terrible, he had bags under his eyes, and it looked like he might have lost even more weight, then Anne remembered the full moon was only two days away. “Anne!” he exclaimed his face lighting up “how are you?”

“I’m ok,” she muttered.

“She’s more than that!” interrupted Michael.

“She got with Irwin!” added Terry.

“I mean we all knew it was inevitable,” laughed Lisa.

“Those two have been mooning over each other since first year!” teased Mandy.

Anne pulled at her plaits and stared at her shoes.

“Leave her alone!” said Irwin firmly.

It worked and the others stopped teasing her instantly.

“Congratulations, you two will be wonderful together,” Remus beamed, “but there’s something wrong isn’t there?”

Anne blushed, her godfather knew her too well, he always knew when something was wrong.

“It’s Malfoy,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Bloody Malfoy,” sighed Anthony.

“I think he’s trying to get Hagrid fired or something!” said Padma.

“What has he done this time?” asked Remus.

“He insulted a hippogriff!”

“His arm might be broken!”

“He didn’t listen to Hagrid!”

They all talked over each other in their desperation to be heard.

“Woah calm down guys, one at a time!” said Remus.

Anthony calmly explained how Buckbeak had attacked Malfoy.

“Oh dear,” sighed Remus, “Hippogriffs in his first lesson, it was never going to end well. Are you sure Hagrid told you all not to insult the Hippogriffs?”

They all nodded vigorously.

“Well at least he’s covered there,” Remus seemed to think for a moment, “but it had to be Malfoy! Lucius is on the board of Governors! Hagrid could lose his job.”

“But Malfoy should have listened!” protested Mandy and Lisa.

“Yes, well but he didn’t,” Remus went silent for a moment. “This is not good. The ministry’s got it in for magical creatures at the moment, it’s because of Greyback” he scowled. 

“Let’s put it this way guys I’m lucky to have a job if it was up to the Ministry I wouldn’t be allowed one.”

“But it’s not your fault!” shouted Michael.

“You wouldn’t hurt a fly!” agreed Terry.

“Apart from that one night a month,” reasoned Lisa.

The rest of the group glared at her.

“Sorry,” she muttered looking guilty.

“It’s alright Lisa, you’re right, you’re all right, I’m perfectly normal apart from that one night.” 

“Do you think that the ministry might try to use Buckbeak to back up their campaign?” asked Irwin.

“It’s possible,” admitted Remus, he looked worse than he had done when he had picked up the mirror.

“Look, kids, there’s nothing we can do at the moment don’t worry about it. How have your classes been?”

They spent the next half an hour enthusing about their first few days of classes. Eventually, they had to go because they had to get on with their homework.

“You kid’s alright?” asked Julian coming over to their usual crowded table which was scattered with nine sets of potions essays and notes.

“Yeah, how go the NEWTS?” asked Mandy.

“Oh, they’re alright, I’ll get there.”

“Rolf says they’re a nightmare and you’re taking twice as many as him!”

“Yes well you need six to get a decent job in the ministry.”

“I still think it’s a crime that that prat Percy Weasley was made head boy instead of you or Rolf,” complained Padma.

“Rolf didn’t want to be head boy,” pointed out Irwin, “he feels he can make more impact from being a prefect.”

“I’m not enough of a prat to be head boy, Percy was born for the job! At least Penelope gets to be head girl.”

“Yeah she gets to spend more time with her beloved boyfriend!” cackled Terry.

“I like Percy,” muttered Anne.

“Oh he’s not too bad,” agreed Julian, “he’s just a bit annoying, how can somebody be so bloody perfect?”

The third years spent a while talking to Julian before heading off to bed.

“Night Anne,” said Irwin from the doorway to the staircase up to the girl’s dorms. “I love you,” he said before giving her a kiss.

“I love you too,” she whispered having returned the kiss.

“Ugh you two lovebirds are blocking the entrance!” groaned Lisa.

“Yeah, you’ll see each other tomorrow,” added Mandy.

Irwin waved as Anne climbed the staircase.

“You two are disgusting you know that?” laughed Lisa as she got out her pajamas.

“You two are just jealous,” said Persephone as she brushed out hair.

“Hey Anne?” asked Persephone as Anne undid her plaits, “can I do your hair?”

“Um sure,” said Anne as she finished undoing her last plait.

The girls stayed up for a while gossiping whilst Persephone brushed out and redid Anne’s plaits.

That night Anne had another dream, a wolf and Gryffindors sword. She jotted it all down and went back to sleep.

The next day the Ravenclaws were extremely excited, that afternoon they had their first lesson with Sirius. 

After lunch, Sirius came into the classroom to find the third year Ravenclaws and Slytherins waiting for him. The nine Ravenclaws were sitting at the front of the classroom beaming at him.

“Good afternoon class, I am Professor Black.”

The students at the front of the class couldn’t help themselves, they burst into laughter, Sirius, Professor Black?

“Yes yes, thank you!” called Sirius over the laughter of Anne’s friends, they quietened down almost instantly.

“Ok put your books away, today we are having a practical lesson.” 

The class looked at Sirius in shock, the last practical Defence Against the Dark Arts class had involved Cornish Pixies.

“Don’t worry, there are no pixies!” he reassured them laughing.

The class looked relieved and they followed Sirius from the classroom, they walked along to the staff room.

“Ok gang, today we are going to be dealing with boggarts, does anyone know what a boggart is?”

Irwin put his hand up and gave a word for word answer from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

“Correct, five points to Ravenclaw.”

“Ok, so you have to imagine your worst fear and then think of a way to make it amusing. The thing that kills a boggart is laughter. Daphne,” Sirius said pointing towards a Slytherin girl with blonde hair, “what scares you most?”

“Um, the dark,” stuttered Daphne.

Sirius had a quick whispered conversation with Hannah and Hannah laughed.

“You ready then?” 

Daphne nodded resolutely looking at the wardrobe, which was shaking, the door opened, and the room was suddenly pitch black. 

A second later however there was a multicolored disco ball in the middle of the room which was lighting up the staffroom. The students all laughed with glee, most of them had never seen a disco ball before and thought it was amazing.

They then all took it in turns to deal with the boggart, one person was scared of spiders and another zombies.

Irwin had made his way to the front of line and the room suddenly stopped laughing. In the middle of the staff room, there lay what looked like Anne. Her waist-length hair was loose from its usual plaits and was all over the place. She looked as though she might be asleep, but her eyes were wide open. Maybe she was petrified?

Irwin rushed over to the body and checked for a pulse when she had been petrified last year she had still been breathing, it was the only way he had still had any hope. But there was no pulse. He burst into tears crying over the corpse.

The rest of the class stared at the scene, Anne seemed uncertain what to do. She went over to Irwin and kneeled down on the floor next to him.

“Irwin,” she said gently placing an arm around him, “Irwin it’s ok I’m here.”

“Anne?” he asked confused looking from one Anne to the other, “Is that really you?”

“Yes, it's me I’m fine.”

“You’re not dead?”

Anne shook her head.

Irwin pulled her into a tight hug still crying but in relief now.

“You ok Irwin?” asked Sirius.

“Uh-huh,” Anne helped Irwin get up from the floor and stepped away from the boggart. Anne’s corpse disappeared to be replaced by a large python, as Anthony stepped forward.

“It wasn’t real,” she reassured him, “I’m fine.”

At the end of the class, Anne stepped forward to deal with the boggart. In the middle of the room was something that Anne had seen hundreds of times before but never in real life. There was a large wolf, but this wasn’t a normal wolf, this was a werewolf. 

Anne stood still her body had gone into shut down. Sirius seemed to be even more shocked than she was. 

Sirius vanished the boggart with a flick of his wand.

“Ok gang, that’s the end of class today, five points to everyone. Anne, Irwin can you stay behind please?”

The students left the room, the Ravenclaws looked concernedly at Anne and Irwin who both still looked very upset.

“Off you go,” said Sirius firmly looking at the seven Ravenclaws who were still standing in the room.

“We need to talk,” said Sirius before leading them to his office.

They both sat down in front of his desk whilst he rummaged for something in the room. He came back a moment later with some chocolate.

“Now you two should know by now that chocolate will make you feel better,” he laughed slightly handing them generous portions and taking a small bite himself.

“Ok well, we need to talk about what just happened obviously. Firstly, Irwin, I know that you love Anne, we all do, but you are only thirteen it is not your job to protect her.”

“But!” started Irwin.

“It is mine and Remus’s job to protect her, that’s why I took this job.”

“It still scares me, I nearly lost her last year,” he muttered.

“I know that,” said Sirius “but you don’t have to worry about her that much, me and Remus will protect her alright?”

“Ok,” he said uncertainly.

“Anne,” said Sirius turning to his niece, “do you want Irwin to stay for this?”

Anne shrugged.

“Irwin, you’ve had a shock why don’t you get yourself something to eat?” 

Irwin looked like he might protest but seemed to decide against it, “I’ll see you later ok?”

Anne nodded slowly.

Sirius sighed deeply and leaned against the desk once Irwin had left. 

“Ok Anne, what's this about, you can’t be that scared of werewolves, you know Remus isn’t dangerous most of the time!”

“It’s not Remus!” said Anne realizing why Sirius had been so confused and shocked earlier, “I mean its not just any werewolf,” she explained. “It’s the werewolf from my dream, I think its Greyback.”

Sirius seemed to relax slightly, “you sure?”

Anne nodded firmly.

“Well that’s slightly more understandable, he’s been in the papers a lot and the dreams can’t be helping much” he reasoned.

“I’m not scared of Remus I love him!”

“Of course, you do,” said Sirius, “go on go get something to eat before your friends start to worry about you.”

Sirius gave her a long hug before they headed off down to dinner. 

“You two alright?” asked Lisa as Anne sat down next to Irwin.

“I think so,” muttered Anne.

Irwin just ate his dinner silently.

The Slytherins were looking across the hall at them, Malfoy was smirking at them his arm in a sling they seemed to be plotting something.

“Just ignore them!” said Anthony glaring at the Slytherins, “they are a bunch of idiots! Irwin, its perfectly natural for you to worry about Anne she’s your girlfriend but shes not in any immediate danger.”

“Yeah, apart from Pettigrew and the fact that Voldemort keeps on showing up and seems to have it in for Anne!”

“Oh yeah, I guess you’re right,” admitted Anthony sheepishly.

“Anthony, can you help me with the herbology essay?” asked Persephone getting up from the table.

“Yeah, sure!” Anthony followed Persephone from the room.

The rest of the Ravenclaws went up to the Common room soon after. 

“Where’s Anthony and Persephone?” asked Padma.

“Library?” suggested Terry.

“Yeah of course!”

Irwin and Anne headed up to Irwin’s dorm because Irwin wanted to lend Anne a book on Norse mythology.

“I’m fairly sure there’s a Fenrir in there somewhere,” he muttered as he opened the door.

When they went into the dorm though they weren’t the only ones there. Anthony and Persephone were making out on top of Anthony’s bed.

“What the!” started Irwin seeing their two best friends making out with each other.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone!” said Anthony leaping off his bed and drawing his wand.

Persephone was trying not to laugh.

“You have no idea how hard it has been to keep this a secret!” continued Anthony.

“Well you can't have been trying that hard, you haven’t even closed your curtains!” pointed out Irwin.

“Oh right!” said Anthony calming down putting his wand away, “but please don’t tell people, we don’t want any attention.”

The girls who had been trying not to laugh before now burst into hysterics before long Anthony and Irwin joined in.


	9. Page Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Daily Prophet causes some problems

That night Anne had had the same dream about the wolf and the ruby-encrusted sword. She woke up covered in sweat and was about to write the dream down in her book when she noticed that Persephone and Padma were staring at her.

“You ok Anne?” asked Padma concernedly. 

Padma was sat on Persephone’s bed chatting and eating sweets.

Anne checked the clock on her bedside table and saw that it was half-past two in the morning.

“Why are you two awake?” Anne asked drowsily, scribbling for her dream diary and a pen.

“Why were you shaking uncontrollably in your sleep?” asked Persephone.

“Bad dream,” Anne muttered jotting down the dream in her book and trying to figure out where Greyback was attacking that night.

“If it was just a bad dream then why are you writing it down?” asked Padma suspiciously.

“We know you used to have nightmares about Quirrell, but you never used to write them down, and you didn’t used to shake in your sleep,” said Persephone.

Anne looked uncertain, she had promised to keep her dreams a secret, but these were her friends not only that but how long could she hide it from them they were her roommates. 

She sighed and checked that Mandy and Lisa were still asleep. They were the biggest gossips in her year, if they found out about her powers the whole school would bloody know before breakfast. She walked over to the Persephone’s bed and cast the muffliato charm that Remus had taught her.

“They aren’t just any dreams, they’re prophesies.”

Padma sighed exasperated, “I get enough about how brilliant stupid divination is from Parvati!”

Persephone on the overhand looked interested. “Are you serious?”

“I started having dreams over the summer, they’re mostly about Greyback, where he is going to attack next.”

“Greyback!” they whispered in shock.

Anne nodded, “I seem to have some sort of weird connection with him, I don’t even know why!”

“Wait!” said Padma suddenly becoming interested, “is that why your boggart was a werewolf?”

Anne nodded.

“So that was Greyback, not just werewolves in general?”

“Yes, I had dreams about him in July and August in the lead up to the full moon and then he attacked the area from the dream.”

“Why can’t you tell someone?”

“You could save people!” 

“Who do you think would believe me?” asked Anne, “besides how would I figure out exactly who he is going to attack, I only know the area!”

“That’s true,” admitted Padma.

“So where is he attacking tonight?”

“I think its Godric’s Hollow,” Anne realized, “usually I get the wolf and a signpost but the last few nights I’ve had the wolf and Gryffindors sword.”

“Have you had any others, apart from Greyback I mean?”

“I had a dream in July about a rock in the English Channel and a rat, the next day Pettigrew had escaped.”

Padma and Persephone had their mouths wide open in shock.

“You should take over from Trelawney!” laughed Persephone.

“You clearly know everything you need to know about prophecies,” agreed Padma.

Anne shrugged.

“Any others?” asked Persephone. Even Padma seemed interested now.

Anne faltered for a moment, she hadn’t even told Remus about the recurring dream with the screaming and the blood. She knew it was more important because it kept coming back. But she also now knew where it was, Hogwarts.

“No there aren’t any more dreams,” she lied going back to bed, “we’ve got class tomorrow.”

“Hey, you’re right!” realized Padma heading off to her own bed, it was now three o’clock. They would have to be up in a few hours.

The next morning Anne headed down to breakfast at seven-thirty as usual with Padma and Persephone. Anne waved at Luna as they passed the Gryffindor table, Luna was having breakfast with Ginny. 

Anne was halfway through eating her apple slices when the Daily Prophets arrived. Anne had taken out a subscription so she could keep an eye on the outside wizarding world, once she had read it, she usually passed it around to her classmates.

Unsurprisingly it just having been a full moon, Greyback was front-page news.

GREYBACK ATTACKS GODRIC’S HOLLOW-

Last night werewolf Fenrir Greyback attacked a young family in Godric’s Hollow. Mr John and Mrs Louise Smith (26 and 25) lived in Godrics Hollow with their two children Georgina (4) and Michael (1 1/2). Greyback attacked Mrs Smith whilst she tried to protect her family and Mr Smith contacted the ministry. Mr Smith managed to protect his children but not his wife from the werewolf. By the time that the ministry officials had arrived Mrs Smith was dead and Greyback had fled. - For more on recent Werewolf Regulations see page five.

Padma and Persephone were reading the paper over her shoulder. When they finished the article they all looked at each other but didn’t say a word.

“There’s more on page five,” whispered Persephone turning the pages of the paper.

The second article was somehow even worse than the first.

WEREWOLF REGULATIONS UPDATE-

The monthly attacks of Fenrir Greyback are making the Wizarding community very nervous. What is worse is that Greyback is longer just turning wizards into werewolves which would be bad enough, but last night he killed Mrs Louise Smith (25), leaving her husband Mr John Smith (26) widowed and two children to bring up on his own.

The ministry has been cutting back on werewolf regulations, to begin with. Restricting which jobs werewolves could have, but today it has been restricted even further. Werewolves are no longer allowed to work with children in any way including teaching or tutoring, as werewolves are no longer trusted with children.

But this is not all, one of our reporters, interviewed one of the Hogwarts governors Lucius Malfoy from his manor last night. 

Mr Malfoy is worried about what has been happening at Hogwarts, his son is a third-year at Hogwarts. 

“I am particularly worried about dangerous creatures at Hogwarts, my son has recently been attacked by a dangerous hippogriff, but this is not what worries me most. I have been told by a reliable source that Anne Potter’s worst fear are werewolves, and she is currently being looked after by a werewolf”

Remus Lupin (35), is one of Harry and Anne Potter’s guardians. Mr Lupin was a close friend of Lily and James Potter at school, but it is possible that they did not know about Mr Lupin’s condition, if they had they might not have left their children in his care. 

If Anne Potter has been brought up a werewolf and is so scared of them still this highlights the threat of how dangerous werewolves are to the Wizarding World.

Is it safe for Anne and Harry Potter the saviors of our wizarding world, to be living at home with a werewolf during the holidays? The wizarding world seems to be worried about the threat of Pettigrew attacking the twins, whereas we at the prophet think that we should be more worried about Lupin than Pettigrew.

It is clear that now at the prophet that Lily and James Potter clearly should have chosen their friends more carefully, Pettigrew betrayed them and one of their other friends was a dangerous wolf. 

At least Sirius Black (35) best friend of James Potter, is able to look after the twins being their other guardian and is protecting them at school. But the question is of course is Black protecting young Harry and Anne from Pettigrew or Lupin?

“What the fuck did we just read!” asked Padma looking over at Persephone.

Anne had abandoned her apple slices and was staring into space.

“What’s up?” asked Irwin as he kissed Anne on the top of the head before sitting down opposite her.

“Here,” said Persephone passing the paper across to Irwin opened on page five.

“What a load of rubbish,” muttered Irwin.

“What I want to know, is how they knew about the werewolf boggart yesterday,” wondered Anthony.

“Firstly, that was Greyback, not just any werewolf,” explained Persephone.

“And secondly,” scowled Irwin, “Slytherins.”

The group looked over to the Slytherin table where Malfoy seemed to be looking extremely smug and proud of himself.

“I’ll strangle him,” threatened Michael.

“Not if I get there first,” said Irwin actually getting up from the table.

“Woah, slow down there mate,” said Anthony sitting Irwin back down, “violence is never the answer. Not for Ravenclaws at least.”

Malfoy had been swaggering over to their table having conveniently lost his arm bandage. “My father seems to have decided to let the oath of scot-free, but I don’t think he’s going to stop until that werewolf scum you call a godfather is locked up in chains in Azkaban where he belongs!”

Anne fled from the room bursting into tears.

“You are an evil git!” said Irwin getting back up and aiming for Malfoy. 

But Irwin wasn’t fast enough, Crabbe aimed a well-placed blow at Irwin and Irwin got a bloody nose.

“You cheating scum!” said Anthony getting up to take his friend's place.

Before long there was fistfight in the middle of the great hall between Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle against Anthony, Michael, and Terry. The fight didn’t last very long however because Professor Snape came over to stop them.

“And what exactly is the meaning of all this commotion?” asked Snape pulling Goyle off of a very battered Anthony.

“Malfoy insulted Anne, he made fun of her family,” explained Mandy trying to stay calm.

“Anne ran out and Irwin got up to defend her,” continued Persephone.

“How sweet, the gallant knight defending his lady love!” Snape sneered looking at Irwin who has trying to stop his nose from bleeding.

“Detention for all seven of you involved in the fight, report to my office at six o’clock tonight.”

Nobody seemed to want to argue with Snape. The Slytherins slunk back off to their own table and Anthony helped Irwin to the hospital wing.

“What's going on?” asked Sirius as he bumped into them on the way out of the great hall whilst Sirius was going in.

“Been fighting have you?” he laughed.

“You read the Prophet yet?” asked Anthony.

Sirius shook his head.

“Read page five.”

Sirius looked confused but did as he was told, he went up to the staff table where he was getting quite a few strange looks. He opened the paper to page five and read the article.

The whole of the Great Hall seemed to be watching him on tenterhooks waiting for his reaction.

“FUCKING MALFOYS!” he screamed almost as loud as a howler before storming out of the room without having eaten any breakfast.

“I think that’s about the reaction we were expecting,” muttered McGonagall before continuing with her breakfast.

Professor Sprout’s first period Herbology was a lot more empty than usual. The Gryffindors were all there and were laughing about Sirius’ tirade in the Great Hall. Harry seemed slightly confused, he had only heard rumors about the article having not read it himself yet. How bad could it be?

Several of the Ravenclaws though were missing. Anthony had taken Irwin to the Hospital Wing to get his nose fixed, and Michael and Terry were both covered in bruises. Not to mention the fact that no one knew where Anne had run off to. 

“Best leave her for a bit,” said Persephone as the girls had left breakfast, “we could try and look for her at morning break,” she had suggested. The other three girls had agreed to this, but they still looked uncertain.

The girls searched for her frantically all morning break but couldn’t find her, once Anne hadn’t reappeared by lunchtime they started to panic.

“This is getting ridiculous,” said Mandy.

“Agreed,” said Irwin.

They tracked Sirius down at lunch in the Great Hall and talked to him. Unsurprisingly Sirius didn’t seem to be in a very good mood.

“Professor Black?” asked Irwin.

Sirius looked up from his lunch with a look that could have killed.

“Have you seen Anne anywhere?”

“No, why would I? She’s been in class all morning,” he said exasperated.

“No, she hasn’t,” said Anthony, “we haven’t seen her since breakfast.”

“Have you checked the dorm?”

“Twice,” said Persephone.

“Empty classrooms?”

They all nodded

“Shit,” he muttered, Sirius looked around at the crowd of Ravenclaws and knew how much they were worried about their friend. He had a stack of paper to mark but he did have an afternoon off.

“I’ll try and look for her this afternoon, I’m sure she’s fine.” 

Sirius spent nearly two hours frantically checking all the rooms in the castle for Anne but there was no sign of her.

When he reached the seventh floor, he started to wonder about something. There was a secret room on this floor that he had used when he wanted to meet up with someone. He hadn’t told the other Marauders because he hadn’t wanted them walking on him making out with a girl or worse!

He walked past a certain part of the wall three times thinking “I need to find Anne.”  
By some miracle, the door appeared in the wall. 

Sirius knocked because he felt like that was the polite thing to do. There was no answer but there was a click of a door unlocking.

“Anne?” he asked poking his head around the door. “Woah!” he exclaimed looking around the room. The room had somehow managed to turn into Anne’s bedroom from back home, everything from the window seat to the books on the shelves.

Anne was curled up under her duvet on her bed, she looked as if she might have been sleeping.

“Hey kiddo you alright?”

Anne looked at him as if he was stupid for asking such an obvious question.

“How did you find this place?”

Anne shrugged, “I don’t know, I was on my way back to the dorm, but I knew that was the first place they would check, so I started looking for somewhere I could be alone, and I found this room.”

“Fair enough,” said Sirius sitting down on the bed. “Your friends are really worried about you.”

“Why? I haven’t been gone that long,” said Anne confused, “I was going to show up in time for break, I just needed some time alone.”

“Anne,” chuckled Sirius, “it's nearly four o’clock, you’ve been gone for heading for eight hours.”

“What!”

“You must have fallen asleep, a good thing too, you’ve been looking like you need it.”

Anne blushed, “I was crying and I must have dropped off,” she realized, “it’s all my fault,” Anne sobbed.

Sirius pulled her in close into a hug, “its ok kiddo, this isn’t your fault!”

“So you’re not angry at me?”

“You haven’t done anything wrong; this is the Malfoys and the Ministry being morons, anyone who knows Remus knows it’s all lies.”

“Have you talked to Remus yet?” asked Anne concerned.

“No he’ll be resting, I’m going to flu call him tonight.”

“Oh of course” she muttered.

“What are we going to do?” she asked her face still covered in tears.

“Firstly, there’s nothing you can do, you’re thirteen this is not your problem. I’m afraid that this is one of those things that’s best just left alone, it may get worse is we do anything about it, it will hopefully all just blow over.”

Sirius wiped the tears off of her face. 

“Now Anne the most important thing is, we know that none of it is true. Remus is not dangerous and if anything he has always been a much better parent to you than I have, he’s more understanding, gentle. The opposite in fact of a bloodthirsty monster they are trying to portray him as, so just ignore them.”

Anne cheered up slightly at this because she knew it was all true.

“Come on your entourage has been searching high and low for you all day.”

“Sirius,” asked Anne as she got up off the bed, “can I call Remus with you tonight, on the mirror?”

“Sure,” he said with relief, anything to make her feel better, “my room at seven, I’ll ask Harry to come as well alright?”

She nodded and headed down to the Great Hall where all her friends were waiting for her. 

“Anne!” screamed Persephone as Anne entered the room.

“Where have you been?” added Padma.

“I have been so worried about you,” said Irwin as he pulled her into a hug, “I thought you might be hurt.”

“I’m fine,” she muttered as Irwin finally let her go, “just needed some alone time.”

“Where even were you?” asked Anthony.

“I’ll show you later,” said Anne tucking into a plate of pasta with gusto.

Irwin looked at her confused. “I have never seen you so hungry!”

“I missed lunch and I hardly ate breakfast,” she explained before continuing with her dinner.

After dinner, the Ravenclaws headed up to the common room to do their homework. When the boys got up to leave at quarter to six Anne was confused.

“We still haven’t finished this Charms essay where are you going?” 

“Detention” mumbled Terry.

“What?” 

“They all got detention from Snape for fighting Malfoy and his thugs,” said Lisa once the four boys had left.

“Don’t worry the other three got detention too,” added Mandy, when it looked like Anne, was about to protest.

At seven Anne went into Sirius’s room with her mirror, Harry was already there sitting on the sofa looking furious glaring at the Prophet.

“I had a call from Remus half an hour ago, he’d just read the paper,” said Sirius, “I told him we’d ring at seven. He didn’t look happy.”

“Fucking Malfoys!” yelled Harry.

“Oi!” said Sirius, “come up with your own response, I came up with that.”

Anne placed the mirror on the coffee table and the three of them sat down on the sofa opposite.

“Remus!” Sirius called.

He picked up instantly. Remus didn’t look angry like Harry and Sirius he only looked slightly upset.

“I can’t believe that they can get away with writing this!” complained Harry.

“I know Harry,” sighed Remus, “but unfortunately people are going to believe them. I’m afraid this is going to affect more than my reputation.”

“What are you talking about Moony?”

“I just had to call up the Scamander’s and resign” he admitted. Remus looked as though he was beyond tears.

“What!” yelled Harry and Sirius.

“The new regulations,” sighed Remus, “werewolves can’t work with children, it's illegal.”

Anne burst into tears again, “its all my fault.”

“Anne!” said Sirius firmly, “this is not your fault. It never will be and it never has been.”

“They were probably going to make that change anyway,” said Remus, “this just gave them a reason to.” 

“Are you going to be ok Remus?” asked Harry trying to calm down.

“I’ll be fine, I’m going to move back in with my Dad for a bit,” Remus looked slightly downcast but he was trying to hide it from the twins.

“At least we’ll be able to see you at Christmas,” said Harry cheering up at the thought of being able to see Remus in a few short months.

Remus and Sirius exchanged significant looks.

“What’s wrong?” asked Anne who never missed a beat.

“You can’t come home for Christmas,” said Remus slowly.

“You can’t go to the Weasleys or the Scamander’s either,” Sirius added. “I and Remus have been discussing this for a while and it's safer for you both to stay at school this Christmas, there’s better protection.”

“Peter?” she asked abruptly.

They nodded nervously.

Harry exploded. “Why can’t I have just one thing! I can’t go to Hogsmeade, I can’t see my Uncle! It’s not fair!!”

“We know Harry,” said Sirius with his arm around his godson.

“We can see each other this Summer,” said Remus.

“That’s nine months away!” he protested.

“Sirius, where’s Anne?”

Sirius looked around the room and saw that Anne had done another runner, “shit,” he muttered, “wait!” he exclaimed, “try and go up to Anne’s room.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look I don’t know but this crazy idea might work.”

Anne curled up under her duvet and started to cry again. She wished she could just see Remus, she missed him so much!!

There was a light knock at the door. She unlocked it wandlessly.

“Anne sweetheart?” asked a very confused voice.

“Remus?” she poked her head out from the duvet to check that she wasn’t hallucinating. 

“Remus!” she jumped out of bed and ran for a huge hug.

“Woah there princess! I only saw you on Sunday, that was only six days ago!”

“I know,” she sobbed, “but so much has happened.”

“How are you even here?” he asked.

“There’s a room at Hogwarts that can turn into whatever you need, it turns into my bedroom so I can be alone. I thought it turned into a version of my bedroom but it’s clearly the real thing. If you go out that door you’ll be in corridor, but if I go out it will be the seventh floor of Hogwarts.”  
“Wow,” he muttered.

They sat and talked about everything for a while, Irwin, the Malfoys, the boggart, and of course the article. 

“Sounds like you’ve had an exhausting week!” he said when she reached the end.

“It has been a bit much yeah.”

“This isn’t your fault Anne and I’m not upset with you, but for now it’s probably best that we don’t see each other outside this room, the press might get worse.”

“I can still stay with you this Summer though, you promise?”

“Yes,” he chuckled, “I promise!”

Anne gave Remus one last hug, promising to see each other again soon.

Anne went to go find Harry and Sirius who were still in Sirius’s room. 

“Did it work?” asked Harry excitedly. Sirius had clearly explained everything to him whilst she had been gone the last hour.

Anne nodded.

“How was it?”

“Do you feel any better?”

“Remus is fine,” she answered, “he wishes he could actually be here of course, but we do feel better after actually seeing each other, and we can see each other whenever we want.”

At a quarter to nine, they headed back to their common rooms where the boys had just got back from detention.

“How was it?” asked Anne.

“Not too bad,” admitted Irwin who was finishing his Herbology essay. 

“Just lines,” added Anthony.

“You seem better,” said Irwin seeing that Anne was now positively beaming.

“I just talked to Remus that’s all.” It wasn’t completely lying she just didn’t want the whole of Ravenclaw common room to know about the room of requirement, she wanted to keep it a secret for a while.


	10. Break in

The weeks started to fly by before they knew it, it was Halloween. Harry had been busy practicing for the first Quidditch match of the season which was in a week. 

It was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year and all the third years were excited to visit. Harry was going to spend the day practicing with Oliver whilst the rest of the team went to the village.

“You sure you don’t mind?” asked Irwin as he pulled on his coat and scarf. The others had already left.

“I’ll be fine,” Anne muttered, “I’m going to get some reading done.” 

Irwin looked behind feeling slightly guilty as he left the common room.

Anne fetched one of her history books from her room. She had an essay to write on Goblin rebellions that she wanted to start on.

“Hey, Anne,” called Julian from a table crowded with books, “why aren’t you gallivanting around in Hogsmeade with the rest of the third years?”

Anne sat down at the same table as Julian where he had cleared a space for her.

“Don’t have permission.”

“Leave off!” he chuckled, “your uncle’s one of the professors!”

“Sirius and Remus thought it would be safer for me and Harry at school.”

“Is this because of that Pettigrew guy?”

She nodded.

Anne got out her books and began working on her essay.

“How are the NEWTS?”

“Pretty good actually, I’ve got an interview for an apprenticeship at the ministry, they’ve got quite a few.”

“Oh yeah! I think Percy’s applying for one as well.”

“Of course, he is,” he chuckled, “Percy will get the job alright; he’s made for the bloody ministry.”

Julian and Anne got on with their work and after a while went down to lunch together.  
“You’re ok you know kid,” said Julian as they ate lunch, “a bit quiet but you’re alright.”

“Thanks, Julian.”

“The best part about you though is that you don’t mind spending the whole day studying.”

Late in the afternoon, the others came back from the village.

“Hiya Anne,” said Irwin giving her a kiss. 

He was carrying huge amounts of shopping bags.

“I’ve got you some stuff, I know you don’t really like wizard sweets but Honeydukes make amazing chocolate.”

He pulled out several bars of chocolate one of which was even white chocolate with dried strawberry pieces.

“I also hit the bookshop.”

He started going through the other two bags which were bulging with books.

“Did you leave anything behind in the shop?”

“Ha Ha very funny!!” said Irwin as he pulled one of the books from the bag.

“I got these for you,” he said passing her a small pile of books including things such as.

Werewolf’s, as monstrous as they seem?

Magical Tales from the Classical World

“Thanks, Irwin,” she exclaimed as she opened the book on the top of the pile.

“Come on let’s go have some fun, its Halloween!” said Lisa.

“Yeah just imagine all the sweets!” laughed Terry.

Anne looked nervous, Halloween wasn’t always the best of times, last Halloween the Chamber of Secrets had been opened.

“If you don’t like it, we can leave,” offered Irwin.

She nodded and headed down to the feast with the rest of her friends. 

The feast went surprisingly well, no trolls were in the dungeon and no one got petrified. 

Anne fell asleep and didn’t even have time to have a nightmare about Greyback.

“Anne, wake up Anne!!” screamed Persephone.

“What’s the matter?” she asked drowsily still half asleep.

“There's been an attack,” said Padma pulling on her dressing gown.

“Greyback?” she asked nervously as she pulled herself out of bed.

“No,” said Lisa, “Pettigrew.”

“He tried getting into the Gryffindor common room, slashed the portrait to ribbons, must have been trying to get Harry.”

Anne had reached the point where she was beyond words, she started staring into space again.

Persephone helped her into her dressing gown, and they headed down to the common room where there was a large crowd of confused students.

“Right, we’ve all got to get down to the great hall,” shouted Julian over the tumult, “the staff are going to search the grounds.”

“Has anyone seen Anne?” asked Irwin searching frantically through the sea of pajama-clad Ravenclaws. 

“What’s going on?” said Michael once they eventually found the girls.

“Pettigrew’s attacked Gryffindor tower,” said Mandy.

“I think Anne’s gone into shock,” said Persephone.

“Hardly surprising,” said Irwin placing an arm around Anne’s waist, “that man murdered her parents and seems to be trying to kill her and Harry too.”

“Come on guys, great hall,” said Anthony.

When they arrived in the Great Hall there was a large number of bright purple sleeping bags scattered around the floor.

“There’s some space over here,” said Irwin leading her over to a couple of spare sleeping bags.

“You need to get some sleep.”

Anne settled down but she didn’t feel much like sleeping. There was a murderer running loose around the school who was set on killing her and her brother.

Irwin pulled her in close from his sleeping bag, it felt comforting. Even though Pettigrew was in the school she knew that he would protect her.

Anne drifted into an uneasy sleep full of werewolves, rats, and snakes.

“You look like you’ve hardly slept!” said Irwin in the morning.

She had bags under her eyes and hadn’t been sleeping well, she hadn’t since the dreams had got worse over the summer.

“Bad dreams?”

She nodded 

“Come on you,” he chuckled taking Anne to the Hospital Wing. 

“Excuse me Madam Pomfrey?” he called when they arrived.

“Ah Mr. Scamander and how can I help you today?” she said bustling out of the backroom

“Anne’s been having some bad dreams again, hasn’t been sleeping well.”

“Hmm, yes,” said Madam Pomfrey taking a proper look at Anne, “you didn’t look too well when you arrived, but I had hoped it was just the shock of the dementors.”

She went back into the backroom and returned with a small bottle.

“Here you are, one vial of dreamless sleep, I want you to take this straight away, you understand,” she said looking at Anne sternly.

She nodded.

‘Off you go then and thank you for bringing her in Mr. Scamander!” she called as they left.

“Hey Persephone,” said Irwin as they arrived in the Common Room, “can you make sure Anne takes this please?” he handed her the bottle of potion.

“Course! Come on Anne.”

She carefully guided Anne up the stairs to the dormitory.

“What if I sleep through classes?” Anne panicked just before taking the potion.

“You won’t miss more than one day, and you need sleep more than classes, besides you already know it all!”

“Thanks, Seph,” Anne muttered as she downed the potion. 

She fell asleep before her head hit the pillow and didn’t wake up again till Monday night.


	11. Dementors, Chocolate and Pig snouts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry plays against Slytherin again- will it ever end well?

Having caught up on her sleep Anne felt much better. The only problem was she seemed to be being haunted by divination class. Every single time her tea leaves showed a rat a wolf and a snake, they had even started appearing in her dreams now!

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Irwin over breakfast on Saturday morning.

Anne wasn’t quite so sure though, her predictions seemed to come true, it must be trying to tell her something!

Today was Harry’s first quidditch match of the year, and the weather was terrible.

“I hope Harry’s going to be ok,” she muttered looking up at the stormy ceiling in the great hall.

Harry didn’t seem to have good luck in the match versus Slytherin any year. First-year Quirrell had been jinxing the broom, last year there had been Dobby’s bludger and then Lockhart had removed all the bones in his arm.

The Ravenclaws ran up to their dormitory to fetch their coats hats and scarves. Anne was wearing a lilac jumper and a pair of jeans, her hair ribbons changed to a deep purple somewhere between the purple of her jumper and the blue in her scarf and hat.

“You coming to the match Julian?” asked Irwin as he pulled his hat over his hair.

“Hmmm?” he asked looking up from his huge stacks of parchment, “no I’ve got to revise.”

“Suit yourself,” said Irwin pulling an arm around Anne’s waist and leaving the common room.

Julian looked at them longingly for a moment, it would be nice to get out for a few hours. But then he shook himself out of it and got on with his charm’s revision.

“Heya kids,” called Rolf cheerfully when they arrived in the entrance hall.

Rolf was standing with Cedric and they were both bundled up in cloaks, hats and scarfs.

“You guys know Cedric, right? I’m trying to get him away from his books for a bit, he never rests between quidditch practise studying and prefect duties.”  
“Don’t tell Rolf, but I was going to come anyway, I’m on a secret mission to spy on the Slytherin team, we have to play them in a few months,” Cedric whispered conspiratorially to Anne and Irwin laughing.

Anne and Irwin went to go sit with Rolf and Cedric in the stands. They were soon joined by the other Ravenclaw third years as well as Luna.

“So, who do you think is going to win the quidditch cup this year?” Michael asked Cedric.

“Well of course I would love it to be Hufflepuff, but as long as it’s not Slytherin I don’t really care. To be honest logistically it should be Gryffindor, they’ve got a good team and rightly should have won the cup the last two years.”

“Ravenclaw don’t have a chance,” muttered Anthony, “they’ve got good theory and strategy, but they spend so much time planning before they even get on their brooms that they don’t get enough practise.”

“Harsh but true!” laughed Cedric.

The rain was really starting to chuck it down now and the thunder was rumbling and the lighting flashing ominously. 

“I hope the match doesn’t last too long,” moaned Mandy who was already starting to get slightly wet and the match hadn’t even started yet.

When the match did start the Slytherins seemed as if they were of the same opinion as Cedric; Gryffindor had the best team and should have won the last two years. This led to some very dirty cheating from the Slytherins. 

The only problem with this of course is that they were actually making Gryffindor chasers jobs easier as they kept on giving away penalty shots. Before long the Gryffindors were leading 120 to 10. 

Harry was searching frantically for the snitch, he wanted to end this match quickly before somebody got bloody hurt. But the weather was so bad that he just couldn’t find it! 

To make matters worse, Malfoy instead of searching for the snitch himself was trying to distract Harry by tailing him and pestering him with snide comments about half breeds and freaks.

Anne was watching nervously from the crowd as a bolt of lightning narrowly missed her brother. The next thing she knew both Harry and Malfoy were darting up into the clouds in pursuit of the snitch.

Then even more suddenly Anne had a strange feeling of misery. She could see a swarm of hooded figures gliding towards the pitch.

She prepared for the screaming again but this time it was different, there was a mans voice!

“Lily take the kids and run!!”

“Please take me, just don’t kill Harry and Anne!” cried a woman’s voice.

“Stand aside you foolish girl!”

Only then did the screaming begin to fill her head again.

“Anne! Anne!!” screamed Irwin as she fainted onto the ground shaking her body.

“Harry!!” shouted Cedric pointing at Harry’s body which was falling through the sky without a broom.

The next thing Anne knew she was lying in a bed in the hospital wing.

“Mum!! Dad!!” she screamed jerking awake.

“Woah, slow down there kiddo!” said Sirius coming over to her bed and tucking her back into bed.

“Where’s Mum and Dad?” she stammered confused.

Sirius bit his lip slightly, “they weren’t there Anne, that was just the dementors.”

Anne looked slightly crestfallen but settled back into bed.

“What happened?” asked Harry groggily coming to.

“The dementors invaded the Quidditch pitch is what happened, before we could start trying to get rid of them you had both fainted,” Sirius said through gritted teeth, “Dumbledore was bloody livid, you’re lucky you’re not hurt Harry.” 

“Look I should go there’s a huge crowd of adoring fans waiting to see the pair of you outside that closed door,” he chuckled slightly returning to his usual cheery self.

At this moment Madam Pomfrey came bustling over. 

“No more visitors until you’ve made a start on this chocolate,” she said firmly carrying what looked like two small boulders of chocolate.

“Sirius where’s my broomstick,” Harry asked urgently as he was passed a large piece of chocolate.

“Eat up son,” said Sirius turning to leave.  
Harry shrugged and took a huge bite of his chocolate and felt instantly better. Anne seemed less certain, she was still shook up from hearing her parents last moments.

“Go on Anne, the sooner you eat some of that the sooner you get to see dream boy,” Harry chuckled helping himself to another piece. 

Anne took a small bite cautiously and did feel slightly better, Pomfrey must have put some cheering draught in this. She finished off a large piece of chocolate and only then did Pomfrey allow them to have visitors.

Pomfrey opened the door and there seemed to be a small crowd of people queuing up to visit the hospital wing. 

“I can only allow six people each!” she called over the crowd.

Most of the students left grudgingly leaving their presents or cards behind to be given to Harry and Anne.

The Gryffindor quidditch team came trudging into the hospital wing, laden down with gifts and cards from the admirers. They were all soaked and covered in mud. Oliver looked utterly miserable and Angelina Johnson seemed to be carrying a bundle of something.

They were closely followed by Irwin, Luna, Ron, Hermione, Persephone and Anthony. They were also soaked and laden with gifts but were less covered in mud.

“Looks like Christmas has come a week early!” said Harry grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“How badly did we lose?” asked Harry nervously suddenly noticing Oliver’s miserable expression.

“It could have been much worse,” admitted Alicia.

“160 to 120,” said Katie, “Malfoy caught the snitch just after you fainted.”

“We should have won!” said Fred, George nodded in agreement.

Oliver was still silent.

“Look Oliver, we didn’t even lose by all that big a margin!” pointed out Angelina.

“Harry’s safe and we can make up the points,” said Katie logically.

“How can we make up the points if our seeker hasn’t even got a broom,” he mumbled before quickly covering up his mouth.

“What!” shouted Harry trying to jump out of bed, “What happened to my broom!!”

“Can we please try to keep this slightly calm,” said Pomfrey who was trying to coax Anne into eating some more chocolate.

“The Whomping Willow happened to your broom mate,” said Ron taking the bundle from Angelina and passing it to Harry, “it flew straight into it.”

Harry stared down at the splinters of wood that had been his Nimbus 2001.

“We should go,” muttered Alicia as the team left to get and cleaned up, leaving a large puddle and a track of muddy footprints behind them.

“Cheer up Harry,” said Ron, “you’ve still got your Nimbus 2000, Remus could send it in from home for you.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Harry still looking slightly crestfallen as if a part of himself had been crushed by the Whomping Willow along with his broom.

Harry’s eyes suddenly fell on the small mountain of presents left by his admirers.

“You have got to stop doing this, every single match you go to watch you end up fainting,” said Irwin concernedly sitting down next to Anne’s bed.

“Be fair Irwin, this only happens with the Slytherin matches,” said Anthony chuckling slightly.

“Did you hear your parents?” asked Luna.

Could Luna read her mind or something? But then Anne supposed the dementors made Luna remember Pandora’s death, Luna had been there when her mother had died.

“The others wanted to come too, but Pomfrey only allows a few at a time so they’ll all see you tomorrow.”

Anne had a smaller but still substantial pile of presents and cards for her. 

There was chocolate from the boys, but at the moment the sight of even more chocolate made Anne feel slightly sick!

Mandy and Lisa had sent her some wildflowers and a hand drawn card. Lisa had also sent her the new Michael Palin travel book Pole to Pole.

Irwin had managed to sneak her mirror into the hospital wing so that she could talk to Remus later.

Even Julian had lent her some of his books on advanced potions for her to read through.

There was also several dozen cards from the other Ravenclaws wishing for her to get well soon, including a joint card from Penelope and Percy with a bag of Haribo’s from Penelope. Anne noticed that even though Harry had many more cards and presents he had not received a card from the Head Girl and Boy.

Irwin, Luna, Ron, Hermione, Anthony, and Persephone stayed and talked for a while until they were shooed away so that Harry and Anne could eat their dinner.

“See you tomorrow Annie,” said Irwin kissing her on the top of the head as he got up.

“We’ll tell the others you’re ok yeah?” said Anthony as they left.

After dinner Pomfrey forced more chocolate upon them. They both crowded onto Harry’s bed and Anne got out the mirror, they both sat their nibbling chocolate as they waited for Remus to pick up.

“Wasn’t last night a full moon?” asked Anne nervously.

“Yeah, but he’s had time to sleep it off,” shrugged Harry as it was half past seven.

“Remus,” she called, “Remus!”

“Hello?” he answered curiously.

“Anne! Harry!!” he said happily, “are you both alright, Sirius already rang me on the flu,” he explained.

“Yeah we’re fine,” said Harry.

“You’re looking better than you did last time we talked to you,” said Anne noticing how Remus seemed to look less worried and years younger. He was actually starting to look his age!

“Yeah she’s right you are,” said Harry suspiciously, “are you up to something?”

“No!” said Remus quickly.

“You are up to something!” crowed Harry cackling.

Remus blushed slightly.

“Um actually, I’m seeing someone,” he admitted sheepishly.

“What!” exclaimed Harry.

“Oh, that’s wonderful Remus, who is she?”

“I’ve only been seeing her a month which is why I hadn’t told you. Do you guys remember Sirius’ cousin Andromeda?”

“Of course, Mrs Weasley still hasn’t forgiven Ted for teaching Fred and George how to pick a lock!” laughed Harry.

“Well do you remember their daughter?”

They had only met Nymphadora once or twice, but she was the kind of person that was not easily forgotten.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re going out with that girl who cheered me up by changing her nose to a pig snout when I was on the verge of a tantrum at a family party when I was five?” asked Harry.

Remus nodded nervously, he didn’t know what the kid’s reactions were going to be, Nymphadora was ten years younger than him after all.

“Cool!” enthused Harry, “can we meet her? You know over the mirror I mean?”

“Um sure, she’s at her parents’ house tonight but maybe another time.”

“I can’t wait!” said Anne.

“You don’t mind?” asked Remus confused, he knew Anne didn’t like change.

“Mind! Of course, I don’t mind, you’re happy, that’s what’s important isn’t it?”

Remus grinned, “she’d love to meet you both, she’s heard so much about you, why don’t we call tomorrow? Or we could try out the room again?”

“Room? What room?”

“I’ll explain later,” said Anne who noticed how late it was getting.

The next evening Anne pulled a very confused Harry up to the seventh-floor corridor and walked past the piece of wall three times and the door appeared.

Anne had explained to Harry about the room of requirement that afternoon, but Harry was still shocked to suddenly appear in his sister’s bedroom hundreds of miles away from Hogwarts.

“Woah, it’s even got that little dent I made on your wall when Ron and I were wrestling!” said Harry impressed, looking behind one of the books.

“I’m sorry what?” asked Anne turning on her brother.

“Nothing, nothing!” said Harry holding his hands up defensively.

“Hmm,” said Anne suspiciously.

A few seconds later there was a knock on the door and Anne opened her bedroom door. 

Remus came in grinning with a woman who looked like she was in her early twenties with a heart shaped face and bright pink hair.

“Anne, Harry, this is Nymphadora Tonks, she prefers her last name though,” Remus chuckled slightly.

“Heya Tonks!” called Harry grinning and waving enthusiastically.

“Hello,” said Anne smiling nervously.

“Watcha!” she said grinning wildly, waving back at Harry.

Their reactions where just as she had expected from what Remus had described. Harry was bouncing about like an excitable puppy at meeting a new person. Anne was staring down at her shoes nervously, but she knew that given time Anne would open up to her.

“So how did you two meet?” asked Harry.

“Well Sirius knew that Remus was feeling a bit lonely and upset what with Greyback and that article in the paper as well as having to resign,” Tonks explained as Remus blushed slightly again

“Sirius asked me to pop round one night after auror training just to keep him company,” she said beaming at him.

“We found we rather enjoyed each other’s company,” finished Remus.

“Cool,” said Harry, “could you show me your metamorphmagus stuff?”

Remus gave Harry a look.

“Please?” he added quickly.

“Sure,” chuckled Tonks changing her hair to electric blue.

“You ok?” asked Remus joining Anne sitting on her bed.

“Hmm,” she muttered, “I’m happy you’re not lonely anymore, but that means you don’t need me as much anymore….”

Anne felt slightly guilty about saying this, but Remus and Anne had usually gone to each other when upset. Now she had been replaced.

“Anne Lily Potter,” started Remus gently putting his hands on her shoulders. “I love you more than anything in the world, nobody could ever replace you! Nymphadora is different, she’s my girlfriend not my daughter. What we have will always be special no matter what happens, and I will always need you.”

Anne still looked slightly unsure.

“You still need me even though you have Irwin, right?” he asked gently.

Anne nodded sheepishly.

“Well there you go,” Remus chucked slightly before giving her a big hug.

“Now come on then sweetheart, Nymphadora’s heard so much about you she wants to get to know you.”

“Ok,” she muttered heading over to the sofa where Harry and Nymphadora were chuckling.

“Remus tells me you know Rolf?”

Anne nodded curling up on the floor next to the sofa.

“I remember him as a first year, I was in my last year, but you couldn’t miss him, I still can’t believe that little kid is a flaming prefect! There was one time when Rolf caught me and John Corner making out behind the greenhouses and instead of running off or laughing, he just stared at us transfixed!”

“That’s sounds like Rolf,” admitted Anne laughing slightly, “did John have a little brother called Michael?”

“He might have,” said Tonks trying to remember.

“He’s in Anne’s year,” explained Remus.

“I’m starting to wonder is there’s an Eric and Graham we haven’t bumped into yet,” said Anne, “we already know Michael and Terry and now apparently there’s a John.”

Remus and Harry started laughing hysterically, Tonks look just looked confused.

“I haven’t introduced her to the Pythons yet,” he explained, “but Terry and Michael are best friends just like Terry Jones and Michael Palin.”

They spent a while longer talking before eventually Anne and Harry had to head back to their dorms.  
Anne liked Tonks she was cheerful and friendly and best of all, of course, she made Remus happy. 

That night she had yet another dream, blood-covered tapestries, a wolf, a snake and a rat. There was also what looked like a lifeless body in the shadows.


	12. Christmas again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne spends another Christmas at Hogwarts

“You sure you don’t want me to stay here?” asked Irwin with his trunk in the entrance hall.

“We have this discussion every year!” she laughed, “go and see your family, they miss you!”

“Yeah but last time you were all on your own! There are even fewer people staying this year!”

“Irwin, I’ll be fine, Rons going home too so I can hang out with Harry and Sirius,” she said, “also,” she whispered, “if I need to see Remus I can just go to my room.”

Anne had decided to tell Irwin about the room of requirement as well as her other best friends Luna Persephone and Anthony. She had a feeling that Rolf already knew about the room too, he had mentioned the room of requirement back in the first year.

“Come on lover boy,” said Rolf arriving in the entrance hall dragging his trunk, “a fortnight isn’t the end of the world.”

“Bye Annie,” he said giving her one last kiss before heading to the carriages with his brother.

Anne headed back to the common room. Even more, people had gone home for Christmas than usual this year. She supposed it might be something to do with a combination between Greyback and Pettigrew which meant that families wanted to stay together to protect each other.

The only other person staying in Ravenclaw that year was Julian.

“Hey Julian, not going home?”

“No,” he said not looking up from his essay.

Anne had noticed that Julian never seemed to want to go home for the holidays, and when it reached Summer, he always seemed slightly crestfallen, Anne had always thought it was because he didn’t want to leave his books behind.

“Do you have any siblings Julian?” she asked curiously.

“Hmmm,” he muttered, “five.”

“Really? How come I’ve never met any?”

“They’re younger than me,” he said looking up from his books grudgingly. He gave an audible sigh, “well seeing as you and me are going to be the only ones here all Christmas you might as well know.” 

Anne was really interested now, Julian never talked about his family!

“My father Morgan Lloyd was a muggle-born wizard from Wales, he was a Hufflepuff, my mother is a Ravenclaw like me. My mother was from a pureblood Slytherin family and were not pleased with the marriage. My father died when I was three years old fighting in the first wizarding war against Voldemort.”

Another family torn apart by Voldemort, Anne realized no wonder he didn’t like talking about it much.

“After the end of the war,” he continued, “my mother’s family wanted her to have a better marriage. They picked for her this time. When I was about six, she married my stepfather and became Mrs. Selwyn. My stepfather never really liked me, I reminded him of his wives first marriage to a filthy mudblood,” he muttered.

“My mother’s family wanted her to restart, her only aim in life now was to have healthy pureblood children, to make up for all the blood that was spilled in the war. The eldest is nearly ten and she will be starting Hogwarts in a few years, the youngest is only a few months old.”

Julian stopped for a moment he seemed to be struggling.

“I never really felt at home in my own family after she remarried, my stepfather never liked me, and my mother was being pressured by both sides of the family to produce as many pureblood children as she could. She loves her children and she loves me too but it was just never the same.”

“So I threw myself into my books,” he sighed, “a few years later I arrived at Hogwarts and was sorted into Ravenclaw when the hat had barely touched my head.”

“I haven’t really looked back since, I only go home over the Summer because I have to. I shut myself in my room and read occasionally coming out for meals. My mother and my little siblings love me, but I just don’t feel like part of their perfect family, I never have done.”

Woah! That was intense. She had thought her childhood had been messed up, her parents being murdered when she was only a few months old. But at least she hadn’t been neglected, at least she had been loved!

“Please don’t tell anyone!” he begged, “I don’t want people feeling sorry for me, a lot of people lost a lot more than I did during the war. I mean, there’s your family for a start.”

“Of course not!” she stuttered, “does anyone else know?”  
“Only Flitwick, he found me crying in a classroom during my first week. He asked if I was homesick. I’d just had a letter from my mother, she was expecting another child, I already had two siblings. I told him everything, whenever I need to talk about anything, I go to him.”

“At least there’s someone to talk to about it.”

“Yeah I guess,” he muttered, “hey Anne you’re good at History, how much do you know about Wizard and Muggle relations in the Medieval period?” he asked returning to his essay.

“Quite a bit actually,” she said before leaving the Common Room. She came back down from her dormitory five minutes later with a stack of books taller than she was.

“This should be a good starting point,” pulling out a book the size of a large dictionary labeled Magic in the Medieval period.

“Wow,” he murmured looking at all the books, “thanks, Anne!”

Anne and Julian’s Christmas holidays didn’t have all that bad of a start. They mainly just helped each other with their holiday homework. They also spent quite a lot of time adding details to Julian’s seven-year supply of History of Magic notes using Anne’s history encyclopedias that Sirius had bought Anne just before the second year.

“If I don’t get an outstanding now the examiners are mad,” said Julian looking at the stacks of parchment as tall as chimneys covering the double desk that was usually used by the third year Ravenclaws.

Anne yawned and looked down at her watch.

“Julian!” she exclaimed, “it's four o’clock in the morning!”

“What is it?” checking his own watch, “so it is,” he muttered, “time really flies when you’re having fun!”

“It’s Christmas day!”

“Oh yeah, so it is….”

“Do you think they’ll have delivered the presents?” he wondered.

“Only one way to find out,” she laughed as they raced off to their dorms.

Julian came downstairs with an exceptionally large pile of presents.

“That’s a lot,” said Anne there must be least fifty presents there.

“Just because my stepfather doesn’t like me, doesn’t mean I don’t get spoilt rotten presents wise. My mother’s parents died a few years back, both sides of my family are loaded.”

“Not only that,” he muttered as he opened a small present grinning, “it’s my birthday.”

“You not going to open yours?” he asked as he unwrapped a box of chocolate frogs from Percy and Penelope.

“I’ll open mine with Harry, Sirius, and Remus later,” said Anne.

“Oh,” said Julian stopping in the middle of unwrapping a present. He had spent so much time with Anne over the last week that he had almost forgotten that she was so close to her family.

“Tell you what, why don’t you come to? You can unwrap your birthday presents now and the Christmas ones later,” Anne suggested.

“You sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Of course, Christmas is time for friends as well as family.”

Julian and Anne opened his birthday presents and soon the common room was full of wrapping paper. Most of the presents were books or sweets. He had been sent some money from his stepfather and a new cloak from his mother which was deep blue. He also had a few little gifts from his brothers and sisters including a drawing of the six siblings drawn by the elder children and a bottle of self-changing ink from his ten-year-old sister to help make revision more fun.

“That’s Morgana for you,” he chuckled looking at the bottle of ink, “she knows I’m working hard for these exams and she’s trying to make it a bit more fun for me.”

There was one more present left in the pile of birthday gifts.

“I can't think who it could be from,” he muttered as he started to unwrap it, “there’s no name on the label.”

Inside the wrapping paper, there was a brown paper-wrapped parcel with a note attached.

“My Dearest Julian,  
This are tough times we are living through, so I’m writing this in case I’m not there for you today. I know in the wizarding world you come of age at seventeen but in the muggle world it's eighteen, so I wanted to get you something small for today. I’m sorry I can’t be with you son, I’m sure that you’ve grown up to a wonderful young man, from what I and your mum can already tell you’ve got her brain, so I’d put money on the fact that you’re a Ravenclaw. Anyway, Happy Birthday Julian, and Merry Christmas, Love always, Dad.

Julian looked into space for a few minutes. He barely even remembered his Dad, his life would have been so different if he hadn’t died.

“Julian,” said Anne gently, “Julian there’s still the parcel.” 

“Right of course,” he said pulling at the paper. The parcel contained two books, one was a leather-bound journal and the other was a photo album.

He opened the journal and read the first few pages, his Dad had written down some of his family history, apparently, Julian had even been related to David Lloyd George, a Welsh prime minister from during the first world war.

The photo album was full of pictures of moving photographs of him and his parents starting with when he was a baby and then he got older as they went further into the album. Eventually, there were photos of Julian in his school uniform and Julian teaching Morgana how to read.

“What’s wrong Julian?”

“These aren’t just from my Dad, my Mum must have kept adding photos after he died, my Mum sent these to me, she wants me to be proud of my Dad and his family.”

“What does that mean though?”

“It means,” he sighed, “that my Mum knows I’m not happy at home. She wants me to know that she loves me and that I should be proud of my Dad and his heritage whether he’s a muggleborn or not.”

“Then why did she marry your stepdad?”

“I suppose it was easier than arguing against her parents,” Julian muttered looking at a photo of him with his parents and a birthday cake from his third birthday, “she was widowed and had a six-year-old to look after, maybe she thought I needed a father?”

They spent a while going through the photographs and then headed off to Sirius’s room, having asked the elves to move their Christmas presents there.

“Hey there kiddo, merry Chrimbo!” greeted Sirius as they arrived. 

There was a large Christmas tree in his sitting room which was full of presents for everyone.

“I see you’ve brought Julian, Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas Professor.”

“Ah now Julian, its Christmas, today you can call me Sirius.”

“Thank you, er Sirius,” he grinned.

After a few minutes, Harry arrived, and Anne got the mirror out and placed it on the coffee table next to the tree.

“Remus!” Anne called, “Remus!”

“Hey sweetheart, Merry Christmas everyone!” said Remus grinning wildly.

“You at cousin Dromeda’s?” asked Sirius.

“Yes, everyone’s here,” Remus put his mirror down on the table and four faces were smiling and waving at the mirror.

“Hello Sirius, how is teaching?” asked Andromeda who looked scarily like her sister Bellatrix.

“Its Great,” Sirius enthused, “it’s so brilliant that one of my students has decided to join us today, everyone this is Julian Lloyd.”

“I think I might have known your Dad Julian, Morgan,” said Ted, “he was a year older than me, he was a good mate, you look just like him.”

“Really?” asked Julian.

“Yeah, he tried to introduce Rugby league to Hogwarts, you can imagine how well that went with the purebloods,” chuckled Ted.

“What’s Rugby?”

“It’s the national sport of Wales,” said Remus. “I’ll try and send you some books on it.” 

“Er guys, could we open some presents please?” asked Harry whose patience was starting to wear thin.

“Right, friends first,” said Sirius who had been organizing the presents. 

Persephone and Anthony had sent Anne some materials and a book of patterns for amigurumi which was a kind of Japanese doll making using crochet.

Michael and Terry had sent her the usual chocolate. Padma had sent her some self-flossing string mints, and Mandy had given her a little cross stitch kit, the grey cat on the front looked like Athene.

Lisa had given Anne two albums, Monty Pythons Contractual Album and Monty Python Sings Again.

Remus’ father Lyall had clearly been told about the twin's interest in the Pythons because he had given Anne the Monty Pythons Flying Circus television series on videotape and had sent Harry videotapes of several films including The Life of Brian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Monty Pythons the Meaning of Life.

“Wow,” said Sirius who was clearly impressed, “I didn’t even know half this stuff existed!”

Lyall was chuckling on the sofa sitting next to Remus.

Anne had also received a book on the Greek prophetess Cassandra from the Scamander’s, and drawings from little Averett and Aislynn who were now six.

Irwin had given her a photo album including photos of her and her friends over the last three years with space for plenty more. One of Anne’s favorites was of all her classmates piled on top of her hospital bed in a huge group hug, which had been taken at the end of her first year.

Luna and Mr. Lovegood had sent her another protective charm for her bracelet, this one was a paw print which was supposed to be protection from werewolf bites.

“It's very pretty,” said Julian.

“But I doubt it actually works,” admitted Andromeda.

“Yeah we all know Xeno, well-meaning but slightly crazy,” said Ted.

“Actually,” said Anne, “it might work.”

They all looked at her curiously.

“Back in the first year they sent a fire protection charm, I tried it when trying to save the Philosophers stone, it worked, I walked through the fire and didn’t feel a thing.”

“It can’t do you any harm,” said Remus, “what with Greyback and all, if those charms do work, I’d wear all the time Anne, they might just save your life one of these days.”

Anne put the charm away carefully making a mental note to add it to her bracelet and put it on later.

They then moved onto the presents from each other. As Julian hadn’t actually been invited he didn’t think there would be any for him but he didn’t mind. He was happy just to be included.

For this reason, he was surprised when Anne passed him a large wrapped parcel.

“I ordered it a few days ago,” she explained.

He unwrapped the large parcel and found the same set of encyclopedias that she and Julian had been using over the last week.

“I wrote to Flourish and Blotts and they delivered them here two days ago.”

“These must have cost you a fortune!”

“Its nothing,” she shrugged. “You’re a really good historian, if you don’t get into the ministry you could be a magical historian or something.”

“Wow thanks, Anne!” he muttered flicking through the first book.

Anne got the regular books from Harry and Sirius. 

Ted and Andromeda had given her something called a pygmy puff which was silver.

“Remus told us that you missed your little cat, pygmy puffs are great, they don’t need much attention but are very affectionate and cute,” said Andromeda.

“Thank you,” giggled Anne as the little silver ball of fluff tickled her as it licked her hand.

Tonks had given Anne a magazine on how to do different types of hair braids. There was also a book called, So You’ve Hit Puberty? - a self-help guide for the teenage witch. 

“That book was a lifesaver when I was at school, it’s got everything in there, everything from fancy hairstyles for special occasions to protection spells.”

“Oi!” interrupted Sirius, “she's only thirteen, shes not going to be needing those protection spells until shes at least twenty-one.”

“That’s what you think,” smirked Tonks.

“I’m sorry Sirius, but I believe you lost your virginity at fifteen,” said Remus, “you didn’t shut up about it for a month.”

“Yeah well that was different!” he stuttered, “that wasn’t Anne.”

Now there was just Remus’ gift left. He had given her a signed photo of the Seekers signed by all four members of the group. There were also two tickets for a reunion concert in London that Summer.

“Wow! Thanks, Remus,” she exclaimed looking at the tickets, “I can’t wait!”

“Just one left,” said Sirius pulling one last parcel out from behind the sofa.

“Merry Christmas Prongslet,” said Sirius as he passed Harry the parcel. 

Harry looked confused, all the adults in the room were grinning at him.

“Well go on son open it,” said Ted enthusiastically.

Harry started to rip off the paper.

“A Firebolt!” he breathed.

“But you said last summer I couldn’t have one,” he said to Remus.

“Last Summer your Nimbus hadn’t been destroyed,” chuckled Remus.

The rest of the holiday flew past in a blur. Before Anne knew it Irwin had returned and she was curled up by the fire feeling safe and warm knowing that the first term had passed and nobody this year had been petrified or anything like that so far this year. Now all they had to do was to get through the other two terms.


	13. The Wolf, The Snake and The Rat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prophecies come true at last

Anne woke up covered in sweat again and found Padma and Persephone both staring at her from Padma’s bed.

“Morning,” said Padma nonchalantly, they were going through their transfiguration notes, it was the last day of exams today.

The year had flown past, there had been no unexpected attacks, no convicted criminals entering the castle, it had been a perfectly normal year. 

But as the end of the year had come Anne had got more and more worried, she knew the dream with the wolf was going to come true. Before the end of the year, Greyback was going to attack Hogwarts possibly with help from Pettigrew and a certain snake.

Today was the last day of exams, she only had to worry about transfiguration and divination, but it was also a full moon.

“It's tonight,” said Anne.

Persephone and Padma looked slightly scared but unsurprised. Anne had eventually told them about the dream where Greyback attacked Hogwarts, the last few weeks she hadn’t had one night where she hadn’t dreamt about it.

“You told any staff?” asked Persephone.

“Who do you think would believe me? I’m only thirteen! Most of the staff don’t believe in divination anyway, they’ll think I’m either bonkers or lying for attention.”

“What about Julian?” suggested Padma, “you two get on well.”

“Yeah maybe,” she muttered.

“Also you have to tell Irwin,” said Persephone.

“He’d never believe me,” she muttered.

“I just wish we knew where he was going to attack!” complained Padma.

Anne bit her lip slightly.

“Oh God you know don’t you!”

She nodded. 

“I know why I’ve been having these dreams for nearly a year, he’s coming for me, they're going to try to get into the tower.”

“We have to tell the others!” said Persephone.

“Wait till after the exams, lets not worry them,” said Padma.

“Where are you going Anne?” they panicked as they saw her leaving the dorm.

“To go tell Sirius, even if he doesn’t believe me, I have to bloody try!”

Anne, of course, was right, Sirius didn’t believe her, he thought it was just the stress of the exams. 

Anne didn’t know how she made it through transfiguration that afternoon. She sat outside the Divination room with Persephone waiting for their turns.

“You tell the others ok?”

“You got your bracelet on?” asked Persephone.

“Yeah,” said Anne showing her charm bracelet.

Persephone then had to go take her turn at the exam.

Anne was the last person to be tested, she looked in the crystal globe and saw a full moon, an eagle, and a tower. That was enough proof for her, her suspicions were true.

She had to think fast.

“I see a sun, that means hope, and a flower that means new life or birth. I think it means a new hope is born.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Trelawney beaming at her giving Anne full marks as usual.

Anne got up to leave and heard a raspy voice behind her.

“The wolf, the snake and the rat shall strike tonight. Innocent blood shall be spilt, before dawn, the wolf shall strike his last”

Anne rushed back to the Common Room at top speed. When she arrived slightly breathless a room of confused looking Ravenclaws were staring at her. Clearly Persephone and Padma had told the rest of the house about her visions.

“She’s crazy!” shouted a sixth year, “they’re all bloody crazy!”

“Shut up Fawcett!” rebuked Julian, “look I know that it might not be true but its probably best if you lot keep to your dorms tonight just in case. This is Greyback we’re talking about here he kills kids for fun.”

“It gets worse, Trelawney just made a prophecy,” Anne stuttered.

“She really is crazy,” muttered a fifth year with bushy hair.

“No it was a real prophecy, her voice changed and everything.”

The older students seemed to quieten at this, surely, she wouldn’t make up anything this horrible as a joke. Not Anne!

“Right ok,” said Penelope taking charge, “older students help barricade the younger ones into their dorms, I’m going for Flitwick,” she looked at her watch they had spent too long arguing, it was already seven o clock, the moon would be up in only two hours!

“Those of you who want to help,” she said to the several dozen students still in the common room, about half the only students and all the third years, “start researching ways to deal with werewolves, we don’t want a massacre on our hands.”

“How about incarcerous, that would keep him under control for a while,” suggested a seventh year.

“Not long enough,” muttered another one.

“isn’t silver meant to work?”

“Go get your potions knives, they’re silver!” exclaimed Anthony.

“How’d it go with Flitwick?” asked Julian when Penelope returned.

“Not good, he thinks we’re all bonkers, he’s going to try and put on extra security though.”

They only had an hour left, they started to barricade the door.

“Is it just me?” asked Lisa as she helped Michael and Terry place a table on top of the furniture pile, “or does this feel slightly like Les Miserables?”  
“Les what?” asked Terry confused whilst a few of the other muggle-borns chuckled nervously.

“Recte,” said Irwin, “there’s only ten minutes left” looking out the window at the sunset.

“Those of you who want to go, go,” said Julian, “don’t forget if you stay down here you might be facing a werewolf and a convicted mass murderer.”

Several of the students went upstairs to barricade themselves into the dorms which left about thirty students mostly sixth and seventh years and the entirety of the third year.

“Ok,” said Julian trying to keep calm, “Fairbrother, Richards you two guard the staircase to the boy's dorms,” he said pointing to the prefects, “Evans, Harris, the girls.”

The four prefects went off to guard the staircases.

“Now what?” asked Mandy nervously.

“Now,” said Anne, “we wait.”

The two dozen Ravenclaws stood firmly in three rows opposite the barricade with their wands drawn, potion knives in their pockets. Anne and Irwin stood in the front row.

They waited, and they waited and waited. Nine o’clock, half nine, ten o’clock.

“Maybe they’re not coming?” said one of the other seventh years when it reached half-past ten.

At this moment, however, Anne began to hear scrabbling.

“They’re tunnelling in!” she screamed. 

“Get ready!” said Julian firmly.

A few seconds later, a werewolf tunnelled out from under the stone floor followed by a small rat. Greyback looked around the room excitedly trying to decide which juicy victim to attack first.

“Get the Rat!” shouted one of the fifth years but it was too late!!

The rat transformed into Peter Pettigrew.

“Expeliarmus!” he called in a slightly bored tone; two dozen wands went flying across the room. 

“That was too easy, has nobody taught any of you lot how to duel?” he mocked.

Julian was livid. It wasn’t their fault that they had had rubbish defence teachers! The only decent one they had had was Sirius, but he’d only been here one year.

Several of the students were looking nervously at Greyback who was getting more excitable.

“Don’t worry, he won’t attack until I tell him to,” Pettigrew reassured them grinning.

“So its true, Greyback does know what he’s doing,” muttered Michael.

“Wolfsbane!” exclaimed Irwin, “you lot have been using wolfsbane to plan attacks so that he still keeps his mind sane.”

“Right you are!” said Pettigrew slightly impressed.

“Now then Anne Potter,” he said turning to Anne, “I’d had a feeling you’d be here, Greyback’s been having lots of dreams about you too,” he said in a menacing tone.

Irwin tried to run forward to hit Pettigrew but had to be held back by Anthony and Michael.

“You’re going to regret telling all your friends though little Anne, the more people are here the more there are to kill.”

“What?” said Anne talking for the first time since Pettigrew had transformed, “so that you can add more people onto your murder list. You’ve already killed twelve innocent muggles not to mention betraying my parents!” she screamed.

“If I kill innocent bystanders and have a werewolf on my side, what makes you think I won't do it again?”

“You have already ruined my childhood, you took away my parents two of the only friends you’ve ever had!” she shouted, “I won’t let you kill those close to me or ruin my life any longer!”

This had better work she thought desperately!! 

“Expeliarmus!!” she screamed and twenty-five wands came flying back across the room.

“What the?” started Pettigrew as the wands flew away.

“Incarcerous!” called Julian catching his wand. 

Ropes flew across the room at Pettigrew tying him up

“Silencio!” said Penelope catching her wand. 

“We have heard quite enough from you!” she said giving Pettigrew a meaningful look as Pettigrew cursed at her wordlessly.

Now that Pettigrew had been disarmed Greyback attacked. He went straight for Persephone who was standing closest to him and bit her deeply in the throat.

“Not on my watch!” shouted Anne charging across the common room at the werewolf her silver dagger drawn.

“Anne no!!” shouted Irwin trying to stop her.

“Don’t be stupid Anne!” pleaded Julian.

Greyback looked up from Persephone whose neck was bleeding heavily and prepared to attack her. 

They charged at each other across the room. At the same moment Greyback tried to bite Anne and Anne aimed her silver dagger straight at Greyback’s heart.

Greyback looked confused, there was some uncontrollable force stopping him from biting Anne, he tried again but it was too late. She plunged the silver knife straight into the werewolf.

For a few seconds, there was a loud strangled cry from the wolf as if he was in agony.

The next moment the werewolf’s body stopped moving and the screaming stopped, and Anne was kneeling next to the wolf covered in blood.

Greyback was dead.

Two dozen pairs of eyes were staring at Anne. Anne. Timid, shy, quiet and kind Anne had just killed a werewolf! Not just any werewolf but Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who had turned and killed countless people!

“Are we sure he's dead?” 

“Somebody check his pulse!”

Anthony came over to check his pulse.

“He’s dead,” he said tonelessly.

He looked over to Persephone who has still bleeding heavily and his heart stopped beating for a moment.  
He checked Persephone’s pulse, “it’s weak, very weak,” said Anthony nervously.

Julian and two of the sixth-year boys still had their wands held on Pettigrew.

There was a frantic knocking on the common room door, and they started to dismantle the barricade.

The door sprung open and Sirius and Flitwick looked in through the common room entrance shocked at the scene. 

“My God!” stuttered Sirius looking at Greyback’s corpse, Persephone’s bleeding neck and the tied-up Pettigrew.

“Mr Lloyd, please escort Mr Pettigrew to my office, you will already find Mr Malfoy there, he was trying to guard the door,” Flitwick began. “Miss Clearwater, please help Mr Goldstien take Miss Galentos to the Hospital Wing.”

“Could the rest of you start taking down these barricades, I need to go call the ministry.”

Sirius was still standing in the doorway slightly shell-shocked. He walked over to Anne who was still kneeling down next to Greyback’s corpse covered in blood and hyperventilating. 

“What have I done, what have I done!!” she was muttering.

“That,” said Michael.

“Was awesome!” finished Terry.

“Is she ok?” asked Lisa.

“Err,” murmured Irwin looking at his girlfriend who was hyperventilating and rocking back and forth covered in blood and guts, “no.”

“Come on Anne, let’s go find Pomfrey,” he said helping her off the ground.

Flitwick had returned to sort out the students and Sirius went to go guard Flitwick’s office to wait for the ministry.

Irwin led a stuttering and blood-soaked Anne down to the hospital wing closely followed by the other five third years who wanted to check on Persephone and Anthony.

When they arrived at the hospital wing Madam Pomfrey who was flustered already. Then she saw the state that Anne was in.

“Will somebody please tell me what is going on! I’ve already had Miss Galentos brought in with a heavily bleeding neck and now this!”

“Is Persephone going to be alright?” asked Padma

“She’ll live, all she needed was a blood replenishing potion, a bit of fixing up and plenty of rest. The bite though……”

“She's going to be a werewolf isn’t she?” asked Michael looking over at Anthony who was sobbing next to Persephone’s bed.

“Yes, yes I'm afraid she is, another victim of Greyback.”

“Well there won’t be any more of them!” said Irwin firmly.

“What are you talking about?” asked Pomfrey confused.

“Anne’s just killed him,” said Mandy simply.

Pomfrey took another look at the blood and guts covering Anne and collapsed into a chair.

“I think we need to do some explaining,” said Penelope


	14. Grazie Mille

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone goes home for the Summer

Not long after they had finished explaining to Pomfrey, Sirius arrived in the hospital wing with a very guilty expression.

Penelope, Irwin, Michael, Terry, Padma, Mandy, and Lisa took this as their cue to leave. Both Persephone was sleeping, and they were both fine. Anthony had fallen asleep in his chair next to Persephone’s bed.

Sirius came over to Anne’s bed and sat down before bursting into tears.

“I’m sorry Anne,” he sobbed.

“What?” she asked confused.

“I didn’t ruddy believe you did I?” he explained, “I left you to face Greyback and Pettigrew on your own! I should have helped you…”

“Its ok Sirius, I’m fine!”

“Remus would have bloody believed you…..” he muttered.

“Even if he had,” said Anne slightly exasperated, “he would have been a load of help tonight, from the attic of his dads house.”

“You’re right there,” he chuckled slightly.

Dumbledore came into the hospital wing wearing a bright purple star-spangled dressing gown.

“Pettigrew and Malfoy have been taken to the ministry, and Greyback’s body has been removed,” he explained sitting down next to Sirius.

“How is Miss Galentos?” Dumbledore asked Pomfrey, “she’ll live but…..”

“Full moons will be difficult? Well, it’s a good thing we’ve still got the shrieking shack from back when Remus was a student.”

“I shall have to contact her parents of course,” he muttered.

“What's going to happen to Pettigrew?” asked Sirius.

“There will be a trial of course, for Peter and Lucius, but I think you know what will happen to Peter Sirius.”

“The kiss?” 

Sirius still remembered the dementors from back when he had been stuck in Azkaban for a month after Lily and James had died.

“Serves him right.”

“Sirius, you know how I feel about the dementors, and also Peter did used to be your friend.”

“Friend!” screamed Sirius.

Anthony stirred slightly in his sleep and Anne looked slightly nervous.

“A friend wouldn’t have betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort and then framed me for it!” Sirius continued still livid but in a lower tone, “not to mention the fact that he’s been trying to do in Harry and Anne all year.”

“And how are you, Anne? From what I heard from the other Ravenclaws you were very brave tonight. I believe Mr Boot and Mr Corner described it as ‘badass’.

Anne tried pulling at one of her plaits before realizing that she couldn’t because her hair was loose.

Anne shrugged, “I’m ok.”

“From what I remember a similar occurrence in the first year. Your nervous disposition disappears for a short time when you and your friends are in grave danger.”

Sirius and Anne looked at him confused.

“Its fight or flight, the majority of the time you flee from a fight or an argument. But when it counts deep down inside you have your parent’s courage, they would have been proud of you tonight.”

“There’s only one problem, Remus wrote to me nearly a year ago about your divination powers. I would have liked to try and keep them from public knowledge for a while longer, people may try to use you.”

Anne blushed, that won’t be a secret anymore then, the whole of Ravenclaw knew for a start.

“I’m not upset with you Anne, you saved many lives tonight, and countless more by killing Greyback.”

“I think you could use some sleep, you too Sirius, unfortunately, we still have to deal with the press.”

Anne looked terrified.

“You’re a strange one kiddo, you just slayed your worst fear but you’re scared of a few reporters,” chuckled Sirius.

Because of Greyback’s attack, the school was closed a few days early, everyone had already finished their exams and the school needed to upgrade their security. Not to mention get rid of the dementors, even the ministry had to agree that they were pointless if they could not stop Pettigrew or Greyback entering the castle.

The day after the attack the students were all packing frantically, the train was leaving a week early at six o’clock that night. A lot of the students were confused but not for long. Ravenclaw was the most popular house that day as they were the only eyewitness account of the attack. 

Anne woke up at ten o’clock and saw Persephone was awake and talking to Anthony. She looked very pale but other than that fine.

Anne hurriedly began to get up to avoid talking to them.

“Anne, wait a moment,” called Persephone as she tried to rush for the door.

Anne turned around and guiltily walked over to Persephone’s bed. She couldn’t even protect her best friend from Greyback!

“Thank you, Anthony’s told me everything, if it wasn’t for you I would have died last night.”

“But…”

“No buts Anne” interrupted Persephone, “you truly are a wonderful person.”

Anne began blushing as red as her hair as she left the hospital wing but she found herself stopped again.

There was a middle-aged couple with dark hair and olive-colored skin. The man was talking with a Greek accent.

“Excuse me,” asked the woman, “you’re Anne yes?”

Anne nodded nervously staring at her shoes.

“Thank you for saving her daughter,” said Mr Galentos shaking Anne’s hand.

“Why do people keep thanking me! Sephies a werewolf!”

“But she's not dead,” explained Mrs. Galentos, “it could have been so much worse!”

“And, you have prevented any further deaths by killing Greyback.”

Anne continued on her way back to the tower, she nearly made it this time but she found Harry Ron and Hermione waiting for her by the eagle knocker.

“Not now,” she muttered, she had already been through it fifty times.

“Don’t worry the others already told us everything,” explained Harry, “we just wanted to check you were ok.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Looks like both Potter twins are saviors of the Wizarding World now,” chuckled Ron.

Even Anne had to laugh at that.

She entered the common room and found the room crowded. They had clearly been awaiting her return.

Anne received a standing ovation from the entire house half of which were holding odd socks or stacks of books as they were in the middle of packing. Anne noticed that there were several Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs within the crowd and even a few Slytherins!

“I’m sorry I called you crazy last night,” said Fawcett as he shoke Anne’s head.

“Um that’s ok,” she stammered nervous at all the attention.

“Ok come on people!” called Julian over the crowd, “you’ve said thank you now leave the poor kid alone! We’ve all got packing to do.”

The Ravenclaws dispersed only grumbling slightly that they hadn’t all had a chance to shake her hand.

“You lot get back to your own dorms, you’ve got to pack to,” Julian added to the few dozen members of the other houses.

Anne made her way up to her dorm to find it empty, but all five trunks had been packed including hers and Persephone’s. She picked up her pygmy puff Artemis from her bedside table and supposed that the others must be in the boy’s dorm.

She walked up to the boy’s dorm worried that there was going to be another round of applause or something stupid. 

But she needn’t have worried, when she entered the room it was a normal scene that could have been any day of the week.

Terry and Michael were playing a game of wizard’s chess, Irwin was writing a letter home to his family, Padma was braiding Luna’s hair whilst she nattered on about nargles, and Mandy and Lisa were discussing the latest edition of Witch Weekly. The only difference of course was that Persephone and Anthony weren’t there Anthony was still with Sephie in the hospital wing.

Terry and Michael looked up from their game and nodded in greeting as she entered the room before returning to their match.

Anne sat down next to Irwin on his bed. 

“Hey Annie,” said Irwin screwing the lid onto the bottle of ink and giving Anne a long kiss.

“How’s Sephie?” asked Padma once Anne and Irwin had broken apart.

“She’s fine, a bit pale of course but that’s only to be expected. Her parents just arrived so between them and Anthony she’s getting spoilt for attention of course.”

A while later whilst Anne and Luna were trying to do their horoscopes in the Quibbler Anthony showed up to pack his trunk but found it already packed.

“We packed your three’s trunks whilst packing our own,” explained Mandy.

“Oh thanks,” said Anthony joining Michael and Terry by the chessboard.

Finally, Lisa asked the question they had all been dying to ask all day.

“Is Sephie coming back next year?”  
“What?” asked Anthony who was setting up a new chess game, “oh yeah of course!”

“What about full moons,” whispered Mandy nervously.

“She’s going to use the shrieking shack like Remus did when he was a student.”

“Fair enough.”

It seemed that was all they wanted to know because they soon returned to their chess games and magazines.

Before long they all had to get the train home, a few more hours of chatting a few more games of chess and they had finished another school year.

They arrived at Kings Cross at just gone one o’clock in the morning. The families waiting on the platform looked very tired but also relieved to have their children home safe.

Remus was standing on the platform on his own, Tonks was on duty that night. He scanned the crowds of students and parents for Anne.

“Uncle Remus!” shouted Harry coming charging over to him whilst trying to drag his trunk and his owl.

“Hi Harry,” said Remus giving him a huge hug.

“Hi Uncle Remus,” said Anne who had just come over with Sirius. She had just finished saying goodbye to Irwin and the Scamander’s who were standing slightly further down the platform.

“Anne.” He looked at his little girl and realized she wasn’t so little anymore. She was still quite small, but she was starting to develop. But it was more than that, there was something world-weary in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“I am so proud of you,” he said kneeling down to her height and placing his hands on her shoulders.

Anne noticed that she and Remus were still getting some slightly strange looks, particularly from the parents. She ignored these though she just didn’t care, she was going home where she was safe with her family who loved her, and that was all that mattered for now.


End file.
